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Summary
Our goal is to support innovation and fundamental research in additive manufacturing (AM) of multifunctional materials with low energy consumption, facilitating the transition from cutting-edge materials science to future AM technologies for multifunctional 3D hierarchical metallic and composite structures.
Description
Multifunctional Polymer-Metal Composites Additive Manufacturing Process
Recent advances in additive manufacturing (AM) have positioned metals and polymers as two key materials. Typically, AM of these two materials involves incompatible methods and conditions. The novel multifunctional polymer-metal composites in this project incorporate low-melting alloys with thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), which are fully compatible with the widely used AM techniques such as fused filament fabrication (FFF) and pellet extrusion. This enables the fabrication of multifunctional composite structures that leverage the benefits of both material classes, including thermal and electrical conductivity, thermal processability, recyclability, and rubber elasticity.
Despite the successful demonstration of 3D printing with multifunctional low-melting point alloy-polymer composites, several fundamental questions remain about their processing-structure-property relationships remain to be answered. Our research aims to understand the structure and material properties at all relevant stages of the printing process, from feedstock material generation to the final printed structures. This includes investigating the microstructures, molecular interactions at metal-polymer and metal-metal interfaces, and how phase transitions and processing pathways influence properties such as mechanical, thermal, rheological, and electrical characteristics. These insights will enable the development of controllable and tunable compositions/morphologies to achieve high 3D printability and multifunctionality.