Carnegie Mellon University

Andrew Hudson

Adam Walter Feinberg

Thomas Hinton

Andrew Lee

This document describes a process of producing gel microparticles, which are consistent in size and morphology. Through the process of coacervation, large volumes of gel microparticle slurry can be produced by scaling up reactor vessel size. Particles can be repeatedly dehydrated and rehydrated in accordance to their environment, allowing for the storage of particles in a non-solvent such as ethanol. Gel slurries exhibit a Bingham plastic behavior in which the slurry behaves as a solid at shear stresses that are below a critical value. Upon reaching the critical shear stress, the slurry undergoes a rapid decrease in viscosity and behaves as a liquid. The rheological behavior of these slurries can be adjusted by changing the compaction processes such as centrifugation force to alter the yield-stress. The narrower distribution and reduced size of these particles allows for an increase in FRESH printing fidelity.

Additive manufacturing support material

This document describes systems and method of embedded printing for additive manufacturing. A print material is printed into a support material. The print material and the support material each have a fluid phase and a solid phase. The print material transitions from the fluid phase to the solid phase based on a fluid-fluid interaction with the support material. One or more parameters of the support material can be adjusted to cause a diffusion rate of the print material into the support material during the fluid-fluid interaction to be less than a threshold value. Multiple print materials can be printed into the support material simultaneously.

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Andrew Hudson