The materials science team at New York University's Tanden Engineering Institute has developed a 3D printed composite foam method for use in the automotive, aircraft, marine and submarine manufacturing industries.
Composites are made of a mixture of tiny hollow ceramic or glass spheres and epoxy resin or plastic resin material which is very popular in the manufacturing industry because it is both strong and lightweight and buoyant. (It is understood that These three features make it particularly useful in submarine production.)
The team said that the ability of 3D-printed composite foams to improve the compression and physical properties of more complex parts and thereby improve the currently used injection-molded foam parts.
The research team created a printable filament consisting of microspheres made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and recycled fly ash (a by-product of coal combustion) that can be processed using off-the-shelf 3D printers Printing is also completely recyclable.
Nikhil Gupta, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the project, said: 'Our focus is on developing a hardware that can be used in commercial printers without changing the printer. There are many parameters that affect the printing process, including building panels, temperature and Print speed. Finding the best set of print conditions is the key to making high quality printing possible.
A key element in the development of filaments is finding the right size of the hollow microspheres so that they can easily pass through the printer nozzle without clogging Finally, the microspheres range in diameter from 0.04 mm to 0.07 mm and easily pass standard 1.7 mm Printer nozzle.
The 3D-printed composite foam is reportedly comparable in terms of tensile strength and density to molded parts, and the team is currently working on how to optimize the development of submarine vehicles that can be operated at specific depths.