In-vacuum performance of a 3D-printed ion deflector

Johnson, Peter R.; Copeland, P. M.; Ayodele, A.O.; Tarekegn, Eyob Negussie; Bromley, Steven M.; Harrell, William R.; Sosolik, C. E.; Marler, Joan

doi:10.1016/j.vacuum.2019.109061

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…It has also overcome the high heat limitations of sealing FFF parts with VacSeal [23][24][25][26]. The results showed that 3D printed plastic could be used for vacuum components themselves, which goes beyond simply having them in a vacuum environment [53]. Specifically, this process provides substantial opportunities to push this method of manufacturing open hardware for scientific work on vacuum applications [54] for both testing and vacuum processing beyond what has been done before.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Post-Processing of 3D Printed Polypropylene Parts for Vacuum Systems

Mayville

Petsiuk

Pearce

2022

JMMP

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Access to vacuum systems is limited because of economic costs. A rapidly growing approach to reduce the costs of scientific equipment is to combine open-source hardware methods with digital distributed manufacturing with 3D printers. Although high-end 3D printers can manufacture vacuum components, again, the cost of access to tooling is economically prohibitive. Low-cost material extrusion 3D printing with plastic overcomes the cost issue, but two problems arise when attempting to use plastic in or as part of vacuum systems: the outgassing of polymers and their sealing. To overcome these challenges, this study explores the potential of using post-processing heat treatments to seal 3D printed polypropylene for use in vacuum environments. The effect of infill overlap and heat treatment with a readily available heat gun on 3D printed PP parts was investigated in detail on ISO-standardized KF vacuum fitting parts and with the use of computer vision-based monitoring of vacuum pump down velocities. The results showed that infill overlap and heat treatment both had a large impact on the vacuum pressures obtainable with 3D printed parts. Heat treatment combined with 98% infill reliably sealed parts for use in vacuum systems, which makes the use of low-cost desktop 3D printers viable for manufacturing vacuum components for open scientific hardware.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thermal Post-Processing of 3D Printed Polypropylene Parts for Vacuum Systems

Mayville

Petsiuk

Pearce

2022

JMMP

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“…A robust protective coating will be a key enabler for such use cases. In light of recent studies, the use of printed PLA parts in vacuum looks promising (Johnson et al 2020;Nogales et al 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constructing Spacecraft Components Using Additive Manufacturing and Atomic Layer Deposition: First Steps for Integrated Electric Circuitry

et al. 2021

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Many fields including the aerospace industry have shown increased interest in the use of plastics to lower the mass of systems. However, the use of plastics in space can be challenging for a number of reasons. Ultraviolet radiation, atomic oxygen and other phenomena specifically associated with space cause the degradation of polymers. Here we show a path towards creation of space-grade components by combining additive manufacturing (AM) and atomic layer deposition (ALD). Our method produced ALD Al2O3 coated thermoplastic parts, suitable for space applications. The highlight of this work is a significant reduction in outgassing, demonstrated using residual gas analyzer (RGA) sampling. Compared to uncoated parts, the ALD-Al2O3 coating decreased the outgassing of polyether ether ketone (PEEK), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polycarbonate (PC) and nanodiamond-doped polylactide (ND-PLA) by 46%, 49%, 58% and 65% respectively.The manufacturing method used in this work enables the use of topology optimization already in the early concept creation phase. The method is ideally suited for spacecraft applications, where the volume and mass of parts is critical, and could also be adapted for in-space manufacturing.

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