Flash curing in selective deposition modeling
Assignee3D Systems, Inc.
InventorMichael Thomas Sherwood
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A flash curing system for solid freeform fabrication which generates a plurality of radiation emitting pulses that forms a planar flash. The planar flash initiates curing of a curable material dispensed by a solid freeform fabrication apparatus. The radiation emitting pulses have a high peak power value that releases a sufficient quantity of free radicals from the photoinitiator to initiate curing and overcome the problem of oxygen inhibition. Substantially less power is consumed and less heat generated by the flash curing system compared to conventional continuous emission curing systems.
Claims31
A method of forming a three-dimensional object in a layerwise manner in a build environment, the method comprising the steps of:
- generating computer data corresponding to layers of the object;
- selectively dispensing a curable build material and a non-curable support material from a jetting print head in the build environment according to the computer data to form layers of the object;
- supporting the dispensed material in the build environment;
- exposing the dispensed material to at least one planar flash of radiation to cure the dispensed material, the planar flash comprising a plurality of radiation emitting high peak power pulses to release an effective amount of free radicals to overcome oxygen inhibition and to initiate curing of the dispensed material;
- and
- consuming less than about 500 watts of power when exposing the dispensed material to the at least one planar flash.
A method of forming a three-dimensional object in a layerwise manner in a build environment, the method comprising the steps of:
- generating computer data corresponding to layers of the object;
- selectively dispensing a curable build material and a non-curable support material from a jetting print head in the build environment according to the computer data to form layers of the object;
- supporting the dispensed material in the build environment;
- exposing the dispensed material to at least one planar flash of radiation to cure the dispensed material, the planar flash comprising a plurality of radiation emitting high peak power pulses to release an effective amount of free radicals to overcome oxygen inhibition and to initiate curing of the dispensed material;
- and
- providing between about 1 joule to about 15 joules of input energy for generating each radiation emitting pulse.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.