System and method for enabling fused deposition metal 3D printing
AssigneeRobotic Research OpCo, LLC
InventorsAlberto Daniel Lacaze, Karl Nicholas Murphy
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Abstract
A metal fused, deposition printer, that uses the thixotropic (or other) properties of a metal (or alloy) to control the viscosity of the material being deposited. In the invention presented in this patent, the viscosity of the metal is controlled by shearing it before, during, or after the deposition process. Since thixotropic (or other) properties allow for the control of the viscosity separately from the temperature, the taught invention allows for precise control of the temperature differential between the layer being deposited, and the substrate layer.
Claims7
A method for 3D printing metal, comprising:
- melting a metal into a slurry using a liquefier comprising both a heating element and a shearing device;
- independently controlling the heating element and the shearing device to cause the metal to achieve a viscosity within the thixotropic range;
- dispensing, utilizing an extrusion nozzle in communication with the liquefier the slurry onto a substrate;
- and
- moving the extrusion nozzle as the slurry is deposited,
- wherein a temperature of the substrate is maintained, while the viscosity of the metal is controlled independently by shearing the metal into a different thixotropic region.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.