Flexible Patterns for Soft 3D Printed Fabrications

Abstract

Rapid improvements in 3D printing technology bring about new possibilities to print with different types of printing materials. New studies have investigated and presented various printing methodologies. However, the majority of these studies are targeted at experimenting with rigid 3D printed objects rather than soft 3D printed fabrications. The presented research considers soft 3D printing, particularly focusing on the development of flexible patterns based on non-homogenous hybrid honeycombs for the interior of 3D printed objects to improve their flexibility and additional stretchability including the lightweight interior. After decomposing the area of an object into regions, our method creates a specific design where patterns are positioned at each partitioned region of the object area by connecting opposite sides of the boundary. The number of regions is determined according to application requirements or by user demands. The current study provides the results of conducted experiments. The aim of this research is to create flexible, stretchable, and lightweight soft 3D printed objects by exploring their deformation responses under tension, compression and flexure tests. This method generates soft 3D printed fabrications with physical properties that meet user demands.

Flexible PBAT-Based Composite Filaments for Tunable FDM 3D Printing

“…The flexible behavior and biocompatibility of these biobased formulations open new application fields, such as biomedicine, 44 pharmaceutics, 45 sensing, 46 and robotics, 47 for FDM 3D printing technology, which is currently constrained by low sustainable and eco-friendly materials for obtaining soft systems. 25 …”

“…43 The flexible behavior and biocompatibility of these biobased formulations open new application fields, such as biomedicine, 44 pharmaceutics, 45 sensing, 46 and robotics, 47 for FDM 3D printing technology, which is currently constrained by low sustainable and eco-friendly materials for obtaining soft systems. 25 Advanced solutions such as anatomical models and medical training systems, 48 drug delivery systems, 49 customized laboratory devices, 50 or tissue engineering scaffolds, 51 inserted directly into a biologically active environment, can be successfully realized using the FDM 3D approach with the selection of the appropriate material. Particularly interesting is the possibility of printing organs for improving the realism in surgical practice, where there is the need to have materials with different stretching and bending properties depending on the consistency of the tissues to be reproduced.…”

“…Such materials are significantly rigid, and only a few materials are available today with characteristics of elasticity and flexibility, such as synthetic polyurethane-based filaments and thermoplastic elastomers. 25 …”

“…24 Such materials are significantly rigid, and only a few materials are available today with characteristics of elasticity and flexibility, such as synthetic polyurethane-based filaments and thermoplastic elastomers. 25 The developed composites, based on PBAT, allow combining high structural flexibility with the production of environmentally friendly filaments for 3D printing, launching interesting challenges in the manufacturing of 3D objects with customized characteristics, shape, and dimensions. 26−28 Indeed the biocomposite materials made by 3D printing can result in the improved and tailored performance of 3D-printed components and objects, thus reducing the gap among design, manufacturing of a particular device, and a more sustainable technological approach.…”

Manufacturing process-driven structured materials (MPDSMs): design and fabrication for extrusion-based additive manufacturing

“…All AM processes are potentially useful for manufacturing SMs (Duval and Lawoko, 2014; Bückmann et al , 2012; Chynybekova and Choi, 2019; Gladman et al , 2016; Cui et al , 2019; Pelanconi and Ortona, 2019; Seepersad et al , 2019; Garcia et al , 2012; Bodaghi et al , 2017; Babaee et al , 2013), but the scanning nature of ST-AM processes allows selective placement of the fused material beyond the basic design of each layer.…”