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Active-mixing printhead for on-the-fly composition adjustment of multi component materials in Direct Ink Writing

  • Simon Teves*
  • , Tobias Biermann
  • , Arved Ziebehl
  • , Gerrit Eckert
  • , Björn Ole Hill
  • , Panpan Xia
  • , Merve Wollweber
  • , Tammo Ripken
  • , Nadja-Carola Bigall
  • , Roland Johann Lachmayer
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Abstract

Multi-Material Additive Manufacturing (MMAM) enables the grading of material properties and the integration of functions within printed parts. While most MMAM methods are limited to process single-component or pre-mixed multi-component materials, the in-process mixing and extrusion of multi-component materials enables innovative material properties and use cases. When processing liquid multi-component materials, the individual component streams need to be homogenized in-process, but the required volume in conventional passive mixing hinders rapid transitions in material composition. In this paper, a two component printhead is presented which combines an active mixing approach with a continuous composition adjustment for a third additive. The approach to control the mixing composition is to influence the hydrodynamic equilibrium of individual material streams before merging them near the point of extrusion. The printhead's functionality is verified in terms of mixing homogeneity and transition speed between material compositions.

Original languageEnglish
Article number100217
JournalAdditive Manufacturing Letters
Volume10
E-pub ahead of print3 May 2024
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2024

Keywords

  • Multi-material additive manufacturing
  • Active mixing
  • Direct ink writing
  • Multi-component materials
  • Rapid-transition printing

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