Capillarity-assisted rapid multi-material 3D printing of heterogeneous objects
Multi-material objects offer enhanced functionality by strategic integration of different materials, allowing tailored properties to meet specific performance requirements. Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing, featuring high resolution and fast speed, has emerged as a leading method for creat...
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-10-01
|
| Series: | Materials & Design |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264127525009591 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Summary: | Multi-material objects offer enhanced functionality by strategic integration of different materials, allowing tailored properties to meet specific performance requirements. Digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing, featuring high resolution and fast speed, has emerged as a leading method for creating single-material structures. However, it faces significant limitations when producing multi-material objects in the traditional layer-by-layer matter, as the approach requires frequent material switching, making the process prohibitively time-consuming. To address this challenge, we present a capillarity assisted multi-material 3D printing (CMM-3DP) method that leverages capillary pressure to generate multi-material objects block by block. This innovative approach achieves printing speeds with over a hundred times faster than the current multi-material DLP 3D printing. CMM-3DP demonstrates remarkable versatility, accommodating not only photosensitive materials such as hydrogels, polymers, and elastomers but also thermal curable resins and liquid metals—materials previously incompatible with conventional DLP 3D printing. By eliminating the layer-by-layer material switching process, CMM-3DP allows multi-material objects to be fabricated while avoiding both intricate motion system and resin contamination issue. Using a body centered cubic (BCC) array as the capillary structure, our research demonstrates that CMM-3DP can successfully create multi-material architectures ranging from micrometer to centimeter scale. Moreover, the versatility of CMM-3DP is validated by successful fabrication of various applications, including stimuli-responsive objects, flexible actuator, electric circuit, and biomimetic human hand. Our method substantially enhances the multi-material fabrication capability of DLP 3D printing, facilitating potential applications with multi-material devices. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 0264-1275 |