Layerwise Additive Manufacturing with Real-Time Curing Feedback
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing additive manufacturing systems face challenges in achieving high throughput while maintaining product quality, often resulting in defects due to uneven curing of building material voxels, which can lead to unpredictable mechanical performance and require additional correction steps.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for layerwise production that uses a sensor unit to identify regions of insufficiently cured material, allowing for real-time adaptation of the radiation dose during subsequent exposure cycles, thereby ensuring efficient curing and preventing excess radiation damage.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If the printing rate is increased to improve throughput, then productivity is improved, but the curing quality deteriorates due to insufficient exposure time per layer
Solution Approach 1:
The system incorporates a sensor unit that detects the curing state of each layer in real-time and feeds this information back to the control unit. The control unit then adjusts the radiation dose for subsequent layers based on the detected curing quality, enabling dynamic optimization of both throughput and curing quality without requiring slower printing speeds.
Solution Approach 2:
The radiation dose is made dynamic rather than fixed. The control unit continuously adapts the radiation parameters based on real-time feedback from sensor measurements, allowing the system to maintain high printing speeds while ensuring proper curing by adjusting exposure parameters on-the-fly.
2Productivity
If a fixed radiation dose is applied to all voxels, then the process is simple and fast, but curing uniformity deteriorates due to heat exchange differences between interior and exterior voxels
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different radiation doses to different spatial locations based on their thermal characteristics. Interior voxels that exchange heat with multiple neighbors receive different dosing compared to exterior voxels at the object surface, ensuring uniform curing across the entire object despite position-dependent heat transfer differences.
Solution Approach 2:
The radiation dose parameter is varied spatially across different voxels based on their position and thermal environment. The control unit calculates and applies position-dependent radiation doses to compensate for differential heat exchange, achieving uniform curing while maintaining efficient processing.
3Manufacturing precision
If additional correction steps are added to fix curing defects, then product quality is improved, but productivity deteriorates due to increased process time
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary detection of curing quality during the manufacturing process itself, before the object is complete. By detecting and correcting defects in real-time during layer-by-layer construction, the system eliminates the need for separate post-processing correction steps, maintaining high throughput while ensuring quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The manufacturing system performs its own quality control and correction functions during the production process. The sensor unit monitors curing quality and the control unit automatically adjusts subsequent radiation doses to correct defects, making the system self-correcting without requiring external post-processing operations.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables the production of high-quality tangible objects by correcting defects during the same or subsequent method cycles, optimizing radiation use, and preventing post-processing shrinkage and cracking, thus enhancing both throughput and product quality.
Implementation Method 1
selectively exposing, using radiation from at least one radiation source, the layer of uncured building material based on the layer data, for curing the building material
Implementation Method 2
verifying, using a sensor unit, the selectively exposed layer for identifying, within the layer of the tangible object formed in accordance with the layer data, regions of insufficiently irradiated building material
Data Source
AI summary
A layerwise production method of a tangible object (8). A layer of uncured building material is provided onto a carrier (4, 30). Repeatedly, method cycles are performed, each comprising: providing layer data corresponding to an object layer, selectively exposing the layer of building material based on the layer data for curing thereof, and providing a next layer of building material onto the preceding layer. Each method cycle further includes verifying the cured preceding layer for identifying regions of insufficiently cured building material, and adapting a radiation dose locally for the next layer dependent on whether or not a location to be exposed in accordance with the layer data of the next layer coincides with one of the identified regions of insufficiently cured building material in the preceding layer.