Additive manufacturing
AssigneeShawbrook Bank Limited
InventorsJoseph Gwilliam Crabtree, Konstantin Rybalcenko, Andre Gaio, Giorgio Ioannides, Rory Evan Charlesworth, Viktor Pap-Kovacs
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present application describes apparatus (100) for colouring an additively manufactured polymer part, comprising a chamber (106) for locating at least one additively manufactured polymer part (105) to be coloured, a first reservoir (102) for containing dye pigment particles to be suspended in a gas, and fluidly coupled to the chamber, and a further reservoir (104) for containing a solvent vapour, and fluidly coupled to the chamber. A method of colouring an additively manufactured polymer part is also described.
Claims10
A method of colouring an additively manufactured polymer part, comprising:
- locating an additively manufactured polymer part in a chamber;
- providing a liquid solvent in a solvent reservoir;
- heating the liquid solvent in the solvent reservoir to cause the liquid solvent to vaporise to produce a solvent vapour within the solvent reservoir;
- introducing the solvent vapour from the solvent reservoir into the chamber;
- dissolving or softening a surface of the additively manufactured polymer part located within the chamber using the solvent vapour to create a dissolved or softened surface;
- introducing dye pigment particles into the chamber, wherein the dye pigment particles introduced into the chamber are suspended in a gas or in said solvent vapour;
- and
- adhering the dye pigment particles onto the dissolved or softened surface of the additively manufactured polymer part whereby, upon adhering to the dissolved or softened surface, the dye pigment particles serve to colour the dissolved or softened surface of the additively manufactured part.
A method of disposing dye pigment particles onto a surface of an additively manufactured polymer part, comprising:
- locating an additively manufactured polymer part in a chamber;
- introducing a solvent vapour into the chamber;
- dissolving or softening a surface of the additively manufactured polymer part located within the chamber using the solvent vapour to create a dissolved or softened surface;
- and
- introducing dye pigment particles into the chamber, wherein the dye pigment particles introduced into the chamber are suspended in a gas or in said solvent vapour;
- and
- adhering the dye pigment particles onto the dissolved or softened surface of the additively manufactured polymer part whereby, upon adhering to the dissolved or softened surface, the dye pigment particles serve to colour the dissolved or softened surface of the additively manufactured part.
A method of aligning particles on a surface of an additively manufactured polymer part, comprising:
- locating an additively manufactured polymer part in a chamber;
- introducing a solvent vapour into the chamber to dissolve/soften a surface of the additively manufactured polymer part;
- introducing at least partially magnetic particles suspended in a gas into the chamber to adhere the at least partially magnetic particles onto the surface of the additively manufactured polymer part,
- wherein the at least partially magnetic particles are initially deposited onto the surface of the additively manufactured polymer part in a random orientation;
- applying a magnetic field across the chamber whilst the particles are suspended in the softened surface of the additively manufactured polymer part so as to align the randomly orientated particles into a desired orientation in the direction of the magnetic field;
- and
- allowing the softened surface of the additively manufactured polymer part to solidify so as to fix the at least partially magnetic particles in the desired orientation.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.