Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Alain Curodeau

Emanuel Michael Sachs

James F Bredt

David Brancazio

Michael I Cima

Tailin Fan

Michael John Cima

Steven P Michaels

Satbir Khanuja

Alan Lauder

Sang-Joon J Lee

Harald Tuerck

Sang-J-On John Lee

Stephen P Michaels

A system for producing three dimensional components by bonding together successive layers of a porous material with droplets of a binder material. A binder printhead has an array of nozzles which controllably supply jets of binder material droplets to the layers of porous material. The printhead is scanned in a raster scan fashion over each layer of porous material along a first scan axis in one direction to provide first fast scanning paths of droplets. The printhead is then moved laterally of such one direction and is then moved along the fast-scan axis in the opposite direction to provide second fast scanning paths of droplets which are interlaced with the first scanning paths. The supply of the droplets to the porous material can be controlled so as to control the overlapping thereof to produce various desired surface and interior characteristics of the components.

Three dimensional printing methods

Three dimensional printing system

A process for making a component by depositing a first layer of a powder material in a confined region and then depositing a binder material to selected regions of the layer of powder material to produce a layer of bonded powder material at the selected regions. Such steps are repeated a selected number of times to produce successive layers of selected regions of bonded powder material so as to form the desired component. The unbonded powder material is then removed. In some cases the component may be further processed as, for example, by heating it to further strengthen the bonding thereof.

Three-dimensional printing techniques

Growing community of inventors

Cambridge, MA, United States of America

Alain Curodeau