US-12617159-B2 - Wire anchoring for co-extruded printing

US12617159B2US 12617159 B2US12617159 B2US 12617159B2US-12617159-B2

Abstract

Methods and apparatus for embedding metallic wires within polymer structures through co-extrusion printing in large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM). The method includes receiving user input for object and wire regions, performing Boolean operations on the meshes, generating printing paths, and determining an optimized order for printing. The LFPAM tool, configured with a data processing apparatus, prints the object with embedded wire and anchors supporting the wire ends. The system may include the use of a cutting tool to separate the anchors from the printed object. This disclosure improves wire alignment, support, and printing performance, enhancing the properties of wire-embedded printed structures.

Inventors

Michael C. Borish
Alex C. Roschli
Jesse Heineman
Ahmed A. Hassen

Assignees

UT BATTELLE, LLC

Dates

Publication Date: 20260505
Application Date: 20240702

Claims (11)

1 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed by a data processing apparatus, cause the data processing apparatus to perform operations comprising: receiving user input including (i) a building mesh indicative of an object in which to embed metallic wire through co-extrusion printing, (ii) a settings mesh indicative of a wire region of the object where the metallic wire is to be embedded, and (iii) an anchor mesh indicative of an anchor, such that two copies of the anchor each to be printed using polymer are to support ends of the metallic wire extending outside of the object during printing; performing a Boolean intersection of the settings mesh and the building mesh to cut the building mesh into a wire mesh corresponding to the wire region; performing a subtractive mesh operation to remove geometry corresponding to the wire mesh from the building mesh to create a surface mesh corresponding to a surface region of the object to be printed using polymer, and a base mesh corresponding to a base region of the object separated from the surface region by the wire region, the base region to be printed using polymer; grouping the base mesh and the surface mesh with the wire mesh and two instances of the anchor mesh in accordance with relative positions during printing of the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the two copies of the anchor; performing corresponding pathing algorithms separately for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies to produce respective sets of printing paths for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies; determining an order for traversing the produced printing paths to ensure that the printing paths corresponding for embedding the metallic wire are traversed last; and instructing a large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM) tool to print, at least based on the produced printing paths and the determined order, the object with the metallic wire partially embedded therein and the anchor copies that support the ends of the metallic wire.
2 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , further including causing the data processing apparatus to generate a three-dimensional user interface for defining the building mesh, the settings mesh, and the anchor mesh.
3 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the Boolean intersection and subtractive mesh operations are performed using a slicing algorithm integrated within a slicer software package.
4 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pathing algorithms for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies are optimized to minimize material waste and printing time.
5 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the anchor copies are configured to retain tension on the metallic wire during the printing process to ensure proper embedding and alignment.
6 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the object is a composite mold or die.
7 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the polymer comprises a composite of polycarbonate with carbon fibers (PC/CF) or polycarbonate with glass fibers (PC/GF), and the metallic wire comprises a nichrome alloy wire.
8 . A system for co-extrusion printing an object with embedded metallic wire, the system comprising: a data processing apparatus configured to execute memory encoding instructions to: receive user input including (i) a building mesh indicative of an object in which to embed metallic wire through co-extrusion printing, (ii) a settings mesh indicative of a wire region of the object where the metallic wire is to be embedded, and (iii) an anchor mesh indicative of an anchor, such that two copies of the anchor each to be printed using polymer are to support ends of the metallic wire extending outside of the object during printing; perform a Boolean intersection of the settings mesh and the building mesh to cut the building mesh into a wire mesh corresponding to the wire region; perform a subtractive mesh operation to remove geometry corresponding to the wire mesh from the building mesh to cut the building mesh into the surface mesh corresponding to a surface region of the object to be printed using polymer and a base mesh corresponding to a base region of the object separated from the surface region by the wire region, the base region to be printed using polymer; perform a join operation of the surface and base mesh to the wire mesh and two instances of the anchor mesh in accordance with relative positions during printing of the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the two copies of the anchor; generate corresponding pathing algorithms separately for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies to produce respective sets of printing paths for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies; determine an order for traversing the produced printing paths to ensure that the printing paths corresponding for embedding the metallic wire are traversed last; and a large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM) tool configured to: print, at least based on the produced printing paths and the determined order, the object with the metallic wire partially embedded therein and the anchor copies that support the ends of the metallic wire.
9 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the data processing apparatus further generates a three-dimensional user interface for defining the building mesh, the settings mesh, and the anchor mesh.
10 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the Boolean intersection and subtractive mesh operations are performed using a slicing algorithm integrated within a slicer software package.
11 . The system of claim 8 , wherein the pathing algorithms for the surface region, the wire region, the base region, and the anchor copies are optimized to minimize material waste and printing time.

Description

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT This invention was made with government support under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 awarded by the U.S. Department of Energy. The government has certain rights in the invention. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This disclosure relates to large-format polymer additive manufacturing (LFPAM) and more particularly to methods and apparatus for embedding metallic wires within polymer structures through co-extrusion printing processes to facilitate mold or die heating without the need for a large thermal oven. An autoclave is a high-pressure, high-temperature vessel used in various industries for the manufacturing of high-performance composite parts. These parts are generally known for their strength, lightweight properties, and durability. The autoclave process ensures high quality and performance of composite parts but involves significant investment both in terms of equipment and labor. In contrast, Out-of-Autoclave (OOA) processes provide an alternative to traditional autoclave manufacturing. OOA processes generally reduce the need for expensive autoclave equipment. Instead of an autoclave, a thermal oven (e.g., as shown in FIG. 3) is often used, which reduces the equipment and operational costs while providing a controlled environment for composite part manufacturing. While both of these technologies can facilitate manufacture of high-performance composite parts, they both face significant challenges at scale. It is generally difficult and cost prohibitive to heat large-scale molds and dies using an autoclave or via an OOA process using a thermal oven. Self-heated molds where co-extruded wire is embedded into the mold or die during construction offers a potential advantage over Autoclave and OOA processes. However, manufacturing large self-heated molds or dies includes a number of manual steps, which can make the process inefficient. Further, complex geometries can exacerbate these inefficiencies. Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, encompasses a variety of techniques for creating three-dimensional objects layer by layer. LFPAM, sometimes referred to as Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM), has gained significant traction in various industries due to its ability to produce large-scale structures efficiently and cost-effectively. A prominent application of LFPAM is the production of tooling (e.g., molds and dies), which can be manufactured faster and at lower costs compared to conventional manufacturing methods. While these polymer-based large-format additive manufacturing technologies have proven attractive due to the large scale and speed with which objects can be constructed, ultimately producing a mold or die via additive manufacture still meant that the mold or die had to be used in conjunction with a large thermal oven in an OOA process, which can be cost prohibitive. To address this, for many tooling applications, a self-heating tool is desired, i.e., a tool that includes embedded wires for heating the mold or die so that it does not need to be put in an Autoclave or a thermal oven in conjunction with an OOA process. The embedded wire can be connected to a power supply to heat the mold or die internally. The industry has started to develop coextrusion systems for extruding wire to construct these self-heated molds using large-scale additive manufacturing. While this coextrusion process has been somewhat successful, it relies on a manually modified toolpath process to accommodate the coextrusion of the wire. That is, pathing modifications necessary to correctly place the co-extruded wire are developed by hand on a tool-by-tool basis, and this pathing is generally only viable for relatively simple geometries. This manual process is time consuming and not practical for most large-scale self-heating molds and dies, especially those with complicated geometries. An example of a known large format polymer system 400 that includes a pellet feeder system 402 and a wire co-extrusion system 404 is shown in FIG. 4. The pellet feeder system 402 includes a motor 414 that turns a screw 412. Polymer pellets can be fed into a pellet hopper 416, which are mixed by the screw 412 turning while simultaneously being heated and melted by the heaters 418. The melted polymer can be deposited via the dual port coextrusion nozzle onto the print bed 406 in the form of a polymer bead 408. The wire co-extrusion system 404 includes a feeding motor 420 that controls the release of wire 424 from a wire spool 420 through the coextrusion nozzle 410. A tamper 426 can assist in providing consistent material feed and proper placement. The wire can be cut using an air-based wire-cutting system. An exemplary user interface of slicing software used in the additive manufacturing process is shown in FIG. 5. This interface generally illustrates the process of preparing a 3D model, such as a tool or mold, for printing. The slicing software is used to generate instruction