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US 8,540,505 B2Granted
Core-shell solid freeform fabrication system
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsIsaac Farr, Terry M. Lambright
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method for creating a three-dimensional solid freeform fabrication object includes spreading a reactive powder on a substrate, selectively dispensing a core binder in the reactive powder to form a core material, and selectively dispensing a shell binder in the reactive powder to form a shell on the core material.
Claims15
A solid freeform fabrication system for producing a three-dimensional object comprising:
- a powder spreading system configured to spread a specified quantity of reactive powder;
- a dispensing system adapted to selectively dispense both a core binder and a shell binder onto said reactive powder, said dispensing system comprising a reservoir of said core binder and a separate reservoir of said shell binder, wherein said core binder is configured to react differently with said reactive powder so as to bind said powder with more flexural strength than said shell binder, and wherein said shell binder is configured to react differently with said reactive powder to as to provide a smoother surface finish than would said core binder;
- a curing system configured to cure said binder and reactive powder;
- and
- a computing device coupled to and configured to control said dispensing system and said curing system, wherein said computing device is programmed to selectively apply said shell binder to portions of said reactive powder which will be located at a surface of said three-dimensional object and to selectively apply said core binder to portions of said reactive powder that will be encased in a shell of said three-dimensional object that is formed by said shell binder.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.