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At least 469 records · Page 26

Recycled Glass Polypropylene Composites from Transportation Manufacturing Waste

In recent years there has been growing interest in developing recycling technologies for composites manufacturing scrap, process waste and end-of-life parts. The focus of this work was to establish processing routes and mechanical property bounds for glass-polypropylene (PP-GF) scrap from the production of parts for truck trailers, automobiles, and rail cars. This study considered PP-GF scrap and demonstrated extrusion-compression molding (ECM) as a viable route for the closed-loop manufacture of composite parts. The results were promising in terms of the strength and modulus retention of the PP-GF recyclate. The tensile strength and modulus was the highest for 50% and 66% recycled content, compared with 100% and 83% recycle content. The flexural strength and modulus of the 100% and 83% recycled compositions was higher than the 66% and 50% recycled content, respectively. The impact energy absorption of the PP-GF recyclate at at all fiber loadings was superior in absorbing energy compared with the incumbent (benchmark) plywood. This work is useful to designers seeking to incorporate recycled materials in their products.

Vaidya, Uday↗

Additive Manufacturing of Isotropic NdFeB PPS Bonded Permanent Magnets

Extrusion based additive manufacturing of polymer composite magnets can increase the solid loading volume fraction with greater mechanical force through the printing nozzle as compared to traditional injection molding process. About 63 vol% of isotropic NdFeB magnet powders were compounded with 37 vol% of polyphenylene sulfide and bonded permanent magnets were fabricated while using Big Area Additive Manufacturing without any degradation in magnetic properties. The polyphenylene sulfide bonded magnets have a tensile stress of 20 MPa, almost double than that of nylon bonded permanent magnets. Additively manufactured and surface-protective-resin coated bonded magnets meet the industrial stability criterion of up to 175 °C with a flux-loss of 2.35% over 1000 h. They also exhibit better corrosion resistance behavior when exposed to acidic (pH = 1.35) solution for 24 h and also annealed at 80 °C over 100 h (at 95% relative humidity) over without coated magnets. Thus, polyphenylene sulfide bonded, additively manufactured, protective resin coated bonded permanent magnets provide better thermal, mechanical, and magnetic properties.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Porous Polymer Structures with Tunable Mechanical Properties Using a Water Emulsion Ink

Recently, the manufacturing of porous polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) with engineered porosity has gained considerable interest due to its tunable material properties and diverse applications. An innovative approach to control the porosity of PDMS is to use transient liquid phase water to improve its mechanical properties, which has been explored in this work. Adjusting the ratios of deionized water to the PDMS precursor during blending and subsequent curing processes allows for controlled porosity, yielding water emulsion foam with tailored properties. The PDMS-to-water weight ratios were engineered ranging from 100:0 to 10:90, with the 65:35 specimen exhibiting the best mechanical properties with a Young’s Modulus of 1.17 MPa, energy absorption of 0.33 MPa, and compressive strength of 3.50 MPa. This led to a porous sample exhibiting a 31.46% increase in the modulus of elasticity over a bulk PDMS sample. Dowsil SE 1700 was then added, improving the storage capabilities of the precursor. The optimal storage temperature was probed, with -60 °C resulting in great pore stability throughout a three-week duration. The possibility of using these water emulsion foams for paste extrusion additive manufacturing (AM) was also analyzed by implementing a rheological modifier, fumed silica. Fumed silica’s impact on viscosity was examined, revealing that 9 wt% of silica demonstrates optimal rheological behaviors for AM, bearing a viscosity of 10,290 Pa·s while demonstrating shear-thinning and thixotropic behavior. This study suggests that water can be used as pore-formers for PDMS in conjunction with AM to produce engineered materials and structures for aerospace, medical, and defense industries as sensors, microfluidic devices, and lightweight structures.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

3D Printing of Cement-Based Materials Using Seawater for Simulated Marine Environments

Global demand for adaptable and rapidly deployable construction solutions in offshore, coastal, and fluvial environments continues to rise, driven by pressing needs to develop energy platforms, improve coastal resilience, and support emergency response in the face of natural disasters. Increased investment in human-made coastal infrastructure, such as piers, support structures for power lines, offshore wind farms, and seawall protection systems, further underscores this trend. This study investigates the development of printable concrete mixtures for underwater environments using seawater as a replacement for freshwater, using a 3D printing syringe-based extrusion system. The effect of seawater addition and the printing medium (in air vs. underwater) was assessed via rheological and mechanical performance characterization. The results indicate rheological properties are favorable for seawater adoption by producing mixtures with higher yield stress and viscosity with the same levels of admixtures used for freshwater. Seawater-based mixtures demonstrated superior dimensional stability compared to freshwater counterparts, maintaining cross-sectional geometry, while compressive strength results showed no statistical differences between in-air and underwater samples. However, flexural strength was significantly influenced by geometry and printing medium. These findings establish critical rheological parameters for printable underwater mixtures and highlight the need for optimized curing strategies and layer bonding techniques to improve interfacial strength in underwater 3D printing applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗

Testing Protocol Development for the Fracture Toughness of Parts Built with Big Area Additive Manufacturing

The mechanical testing of additively manufactured parts has largely relied on the existing standards developed for traditional manufacturing. While this approach leverages the investment made in current standards development, it inaccurately assumes that the mechanical response of additive manufacturing (AM) parts is identical to that of parts manufactured through traditional processes. When considering thermoplastic, material extrusion AM, the differences in response can be attributed to an AM part’s inherent inhomogeneity caused by porosity, interlayer zones, and surface texture. Additionally, the interlayer bonding of parts printed with large-scale AM is difficult to adequately assess, as much testing is performed such that stress is distributed across many layer interfaces; therefore, the lack of AM-specific standards to assess interlayer bonding is a significant research gap. To quantify interlayer bonding via fracture toughness, double cantilever beam (DCB) testing has been used for some AM materials, and DCB has been generally used for a variety of materials including metal, wood, and laminates. Mode I DCB testing was performed on thermoplastic matrix composites printed with Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM). Of particular interest was the notch shape and deflection speed during testing. The results examine the differences when using two notch types and three deflection speeds. The testing method introduced by the following paper differentiates itself from the ones described in the standards used by modernizing the methodology. This was conducted with the introduction of Digital Image Correlation (DIC) to gather displacement and load data simultaneously without human intervention.

Polymer Science↗

Local Thermomechanical Processing for Improving Formability of High Strength Aluminum Sheets

Limited room temperature formability hinders the wide-spread use of high strength aluminum alloys in structural body-in-white parts. Stamping or extrusion at warm temperatures or from softer tempers are the current solutions. In this work, our approach is to start with age-hardened sheets from 7xxx and 6xxx family of alloys and improve their formability using local thermomechanical processing only in the regions demanding highest ductility in the forming processes. We achieved local formability improvements with friction stir processing and introduce another process named roller-bending as a concept and showed its feasibility through finite element simulations. Initial results from FSP indicated significant deformation in the processed zones with minimal sheet distortion. FSP also resulted in dynamically recrystallized, fine grained (d < 5 µm) microstructures in the processed regions with textures significantly different from the base material. This resulted in formability improvements of > 30% in 7085-T76 and > 50% in 6111-T6 alloys as measured by minimum bend radius (r/t) ratios established with V-bending tests performed at 90° and 180° bend angles. Based on the encouraging initial results, we envision applicability of these processes in both pre- and post-stamping stages through integration of the process tools as end-effectors to robotic arms.

Nasim, Wahaz↗

Catalytic converters having non-linear flow channels

Disclosed is a honeycomb catalyst substrate core having geometrically non-linear flow channels. In an embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes helical flow channels. In another embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes sinusoidal flow channels. In yet another embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes helical plus sinusoidal flow channels. The honeycomb catalyst substrate core comprises a plurality of parallel non-linear flow channels formed along a longitudinal axis of symmetry of the catalyst substrate core, each non-linear flow channel configured such that a turbulent vortical flow occurs during engine exhaust gas flow. Also disclosed is a method for manufacturing a ceramic honeycomb having non-linear flow channels, comprising the steps extrusion soft ceramic material through a die whilst the die moves through six degrees of freedom along its axis of symmetry. Disclosure includes a method for manufacturing a ceramic honeycomb having non-linear flow channels using three-dimensional printing.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗

HYBRID MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUE USING LARGE-SCALE ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING AND COMPRESSION MOLDING FOR HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPOSITES

Additive Manufacturing (AM) or 3-D printing has moved from small-scale prototypes to large-scale functional structures. With the introduction of large-scale 3D printers into the market a new industry has been born. For the first time, we are presenting the idea of preparing large-scale 3-D printed β-stage preforms to be used in traditional compression molding (CM) manufacturing technique to prepare final functional structures. Short carbon fiber (CF) reinforced material acrylonitrile butadiene Styrene i.e. ABS with 20% CF is used in present work. It is shown that highly aligned 3D printed short carbon fiber composite maintains its orientation after compression molding. A sandwich panel is prepared to show the capability to prepare complicated parts by integrating AM and CM. Interphase of the prepared dissimilar material is also studied using SEM. Samples prepared using AM-CM integration showed 11% and 79 % improvement in tensile strength and tensile modulus respectively compared to the traditional extrusion compression molding (ECM) process.

Kumar, Vipin↗

Catalytic converters having non-linear flow channels

Disclosed is a honeycomb catalyst substrate core having geometrically non-linear flow channels. In an embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes helical flow channels. In another embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes sinusoidal flow channels. In yet another embodiment, the honeycomb catalyst substrate core includes helical plus sinusoidal flow channels. The honeycomb catalyst substrate core comprises a plurality of parallel non-linear flow channels formed along a longitudinal axis of symmetry of the catalyst substrate core, each non-linear flow channel configured such that eddies occurs during engine exhaust gas flow. Also disclosed is a method for manufacturing a ceramic honeycomb having non-linear flow channels, comprising the steps extrusion soft ceramic material through a die whilst the die moves through six degrees of freedom along its axis of symmetry. Disclosure includes a method for manufacturing a ceramic honeycomb having non-linear flow channels using three-dimensional printing.

Masoudi, Mansour↗

Laser gain media fabricated via direct ink writing (DIW) and ceramic processing

A transparent ceramic optic includes: a lasing region comprising at least one lasing species dopant; and a transparent region transparent to light generated by the lasing species. At least the transparent region is doped with at least one other dopant species such that the lasing region and the transparent region are characterized by a difference in refractive index between the two regions in an amount of about 1.0×10−4 or less. Inventive formulations of inks suitable for fabricating transparent ceramic optics having desirable compositional characteristics such as concentration gradients in desired spatial arrangements, e.g. using additive manufacturing techniques such as direct ink writing and/or extrusion freeform fabrication are also disclosed, along with suitable techniques for forming the transparent ceramic optics from such inks.

Payne, Stephen A.↗

Production of Medium-Scale Metal Additive Geometry With Hybrid Manufacturing Technology

Oak Ridge National Lab’s (ORNL) Metal Big Area Additive Manufacturing (mBAAM) and Hybrid Manufacturing teams in the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) was tasked with developing a part that exceeded 24 inches in length and 100lbs in weight on a laser hotwire welding system. The Mazak VC-500A/5X AM HWD hybrid 5-axis CNC laser hotwire system was leveraged to complete the task. The proposed geometry was manufactured with 410 stainless steel on AISI1018 steel substrate in just over 36 hours of build time. The proposed geometry was sliced and additively manufactured in three segments; the base, and two extrusions measuring 10 inches in length and 14 inches in length. Production of this component demonstrated hybrid capabilities requiring fixed 5-axis rotations to complete geometry that exceeded the defined build volume of the machine. Multiple repairs of the part were conducted in-situ leveraging the additive and subtractive capabilities of the Mazak hybrid system. Significant overbuilding challenges were encountered and manually addressed by leveraging subtractive capabilities of the hybrid system. Future processes are presented for development to reduce overheating of top layers. Final part measurements exceeded 107 lbs. in weight and 24.5 inches in length along the principal axis; the largest and heaviest part created by a hybrid system at the MDF.

Saleeby, Kyle↗

Phenol-containing polyester multiphase polymer blend materials

A solid multiphase polymer blend material comprising: (i) a polyphenolic substance having a molecular weight of at least 500 g/mol; and (ii) a polyester having a molecular weight of at least 500 g/mol; wherein at least a portion of the polyphenolic substance is covalently bonded directly or through a linking moiety to the polyester. Methods for producing the blend material are also described, e.g., homogeneously melt blending a mixture comprising components (i) and (ii) under conditions resulting in covalent attachment of at least a portion of the polyphenolic substance directly or through a linking moiety to the polyester. Methods for producing objects made of the blend material by melt extrusion are also described.

Bova, Anthony S.↗

Method of fabricating a three-dimensionally patterned mechanical energy absorptive material

A three-dimensionally patterned energy absorptive material and fabrication method having multiple layers of patterned filaments extrusion-formed from a curable pre-cursor material and stacked and cured in a three-dimensionally patterned architecture so that the energy absorptive material produced thereby has an engineered bulk property associated with the three-dimensionally patterned architecture.

Duoss, Eric B.↗

Characterization of anisotropic mechanical properties of polymer composites from a hybrid additive manufacturing-compression molding process using x-ray computer tomography

In this study, anisotropic stiffness tensors were reconstructed based on fiber orientation distributions obtained from X-ray computer tomography (xCT). A preform was manufactured via a big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) system with carbon fiber (CF) filled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The tailored preform from additive manufacturing (AM) was used in the compression molding (CM) process to produce a low-void high-performance thermoplastic composite panel. An xCT technique was employed to detect the fiber orientations in CF/ABS composites manufactured via three different methods: AM from BAAM, extrusion compression molding (ECM), and AM-CM. The anisotropic stiffness tensor was obtained from the composite panel manufactured via the three manufacturing methods (AM, ECM, and AMCM). A micromechanics theory was used to obtain the orthotropic stiffness tensors of the composite panels and compared with the experimental values. The predicted stiffness tensors of AM and AM-CM composite panels were used to study the deformation characteristics of a steering wheel during airbag deployment by performing finite element analysis (FEA). The approach developed in this study can be utilized for evaluating high-performance composites.

Pokkalla, Deepak↗

MODELLING FIBER ORIENTATION DURING ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING COMPRESSION MOLDING PROCESSES

The production of high-performance thermoplastic composites reinforced with short carbon fibers can be achieved by a novel “additive manufacturing-compression molding” technique. An advantage of such combination is two-fold: controlled fiber orientation in additive manufacturing and less void content by compression molding. In this study, a computational fluid dynamics model has been developed to predict the behavior of printed layers during fiber-reinforced thermoplastic extrusion and subsequent compression molding. The fiber orientation was modelled with a simple quadratic closure model. The interaction between the fibers is included using a rotary diffusion coefficient which becomes significant in concentrated regimes. Finally, the second order orientation tensor is coupled with the momentum equation as an anisotropic part of the stress term. The effect of processing parameters on the behavior of printed layers was investigated to determine the favorable printing scenarios. The developed numerical model enables design of high-performance composites with tunable mechanical properties.

Seta, Berin↗

MODELLING OF ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING – COMPRESSION MOLDING PROCESS USING COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS

A computational fluid dynamics model has been developed to predict the behavior of a printed strands during a novel material extrusion additive manufacturing and compression molding process. While the traditional additive manufacturing process enables control over the fiber orientation within the part, it would also result in high void content. On the other hand, compression molding produces parts with low porosity levels at rapid processing cycle time but lacks control over the microstructure. The novel additive manufacturing – compression molding (AM-CM) integrating both these processes offers control over both the microstructure and porosity to manufacturing high performance composite parts. The numerical model developed here enables to analyze the effect of processing parameters on the behaviour of printed layer that is subsequently compressed and to determine the optimal printing parameters for high-performance composite part design.

Seta, Berin↗

Design and Use of a Penetrating Deposition Nozzle for Z-Pinning Additive Manufacturing

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) involves depositing material layer-by-layer to create athree-dimensional object. This method often demonstrates high mechanical anisotropy in theprinted structure, leading to a drop in the material strength of the part when comparing structuresalong the deposition plane (X/Y-Axis) versus across layers in the build direction (Z-Axis). Initialefforts to improve anisotropy led to the development of the Z-Pinning process, where continuouspins are deposited across layers in the Z-Axis. Z-pinning has demonstrated significant gains intoughness and inter-layer strength, particularly in fiber-reinforced materials. However, thisprocess can also create flaws in the structure that increase in severity and frequency as the pinsgrow in length and diameter. To mitigate this, a penetrating nozzle has been developed thatextends a fine-tipped extrusion nozzle deep into the pin cavity and simultaneously extrudesmaterial as it retracts. This study investigates the printability of the penetrating nozzle for simplegeometries and evaluates the resulting Z-pinning mesostructure. As a result of this study, theprototype penetrating nozzle design was analyzed and built. Through a pressure driven flowanalysis it was determined that the penetrating nozzle extruder can not only flow extrudefilament. After a transient thermal simulation it was found that after a pause of 15 secondsresume printing with no drop in heat at nozzle exit.

Bales, Brenin↗

Processing of hollow sections

A system and method provide a material with uniform micro-structure. In an embodiment, an equal channel angular extrusion system includes an interior mandrel. The interior mandrel includes an expanding shear material section and a contracting shear material section. In addition, the system includes a material. The material is disposed about a portion of the interior mandrel. Moreover, the system includes a pressure application device. The pressure application device applies pressure to the material to force the material to contact the expanding shear material section to provide an expanded post-shear material section. Pressure from the pressure application device applies pressure to the material to force the expanded post-shear material section to contact the contracting shear material section to provide a contracted shear material section.

Barber, Robert E.↗