Repairing 3D Printed Articles Using Interlocking Attachment Features
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Solution Overview
Problem
Three-dimensional (3D) printed articles often break during fabrication or handling, leading to high costs due to the need for repair and the existing methods for repairing these articles are inefficient.
Innovation Solution
A method and system for repairing 3D articles with a fracture zone using a forming tool to create an attachment feature, imaging the article to define a repair portion with a complementary attachment feature, and printing the repair portion to securely attach it to the damaged article, ensuring accurate alignment and secure interengagement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If 3D printing is used to manufacture customized or low volume complex articles, then manufacturing flexibility and customization capability are improved, but cost per unit article increases compared to high volume processes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the repaired article into two segments: the original damaged portion and the separately manufactured repair portion. This allows the repair portion to be produced independently through 3D printing, enabling customization of the repair process without requiring complete article replacement, thus maintaining flexibility while controlling costs.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent performs preliminary actions by creating attachment features on the damaged article before the repair portion is printed. This includes forming recesses or protrusions that will receive complementary features on the repair portion, ensuring proper alignment and secure attachment before the actual repair manufacturing occurs.
2Ease of repair
If existing repair methods are used for broken 3D articles, then repair capability is provided, but efficiency is poor and complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent creates a digital copy or model of the original article to design and manufacture the repair portion. By using the original article's geometric data and creating a complementary repair portion based on digital modeling, the process eliminates manual pattern-making and fitting, significantly improving repair efficiency and reducing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the state of the material at the fracture zone by heating it to a deformable state, allowing the forming tool to create attachment features. This parameter change (temperature increase) enables easy formation of recesses or protrusions that would be difficult to create in solid material, simplifying the repair process.
3Strength
If attachment features are formed into material at the fracture zone, then secure attachment of repair portion is achieved, but additional processing steps are required
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces attachment features (recesses and complementary protrusions) as intermediary elements between the damaged article and the repair portion. These features act as mechanical mediators that provide secure attachment without requiring complex bonding processes, adhesives, or interference fits, thus achieving strong attachment while maintaining process simplicity.
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
The method effectively restores 3D articles by ensuring precise alignment and secure attachment of the repair portion, reducing the complexity and cost associated with repairing broken articles, and maintaining the integrity of the original article's structure.
Implementation Method 1
The damaged 3D article includes a thermoplastically deformable material at the fracture zone. Forming the attachment feature includes pressing a heated tip of the forming tool into the deformable material at the fracture zone to form one or more recesses extending into the material of the fracture zone.
Data Source
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Figure 3
Figure 4A~4F
AI summary
A manufacturing method is for repairing a damaged three- dimensional (3D) article (802) having a fracture zone (804) which is a site of a broken-off portion of the 3D article. The method includes using a forming tool to form an attachment feature (808) into material at the fracture zone (804), imaging the 3D article including the fracture zone to provide image data, defining a repair portion 3D body (814) based upon a comparison between the image data and data defining an intact 3D body, printing the repair portion 3D body (814) including a complementary attachment features (816), and attaching the repair portion (814) to the damaged 3D article through the interengagement of the complementary attachment feature (816) and the attachment feature (808).