8/25/2023 0 Comments 3d printing vs 4d printingInstead, the liquid 3D object is printedinto a tank containing a gel, which suspends the object so it is not subject to gravity. Unlike most 3D printing approaches, rapid liquid printing doesn’t build up objects layer by layer. To make its pneumatic material, Tibbits’ group developed a novel type of 3D printing technology – rapid liquid printing. A potential use is in car seats, enabling them to become softer or harder, or to provide greater lumbar support, without the need for complicated mechanical mechanisms, he adds. ‘With BMW, we were looking at the future of the car interior how materials could morph and transform in the car based on pressure differential,’ Tibbits says. The smart material changes shape in response to the amount of air pumped into it. The Tibbits group has also created a 4D printed stretchy, inflatable silicone prototype material with tuneable stiffness in conjunction with the car manufacturer BMW. We can print high-quality products at large scale, super fast For this table, an ink composed of polymer and sawdust was printed onto the fabric. He also used the same trick to produce a 4D printed dining table prototype designed to be flat-packed and then to instantly spring up into the 3D shape once unpacked. ‘It’s a jack-in-the-box effect,’ explains Tibbits. After the fabric was released from its stretch, the 2D shape immediately jumped up into the intended 3D shape. His group printed a preprogrammed pattern of polymer ink onto a stretched piece of textile fabric. One of Tibbits’ early designs was a 4D printed shoe. It is still early days for 4D printing and no smart materials made this way are yet in commercial use, although plenty of prototypes have been developed. It is now possible for researchers to get their hands on a new prototype within hours rather than months of designing it. ‘Previously, once you’ve designed a material, then you have to figure out how to fabricate it, which is going to take you probably half a year to achieve,’ Qi says. This ease of manufacture also accelerates innovation. ‘It is almost impossible to fabricate using the commercial fabrication approach – or at least it would be extremely tedious,’ explains Jerry Qi, a mechanical engineer from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the US. Allowing access to types of materials that are impractical to produce any other ways is another. Using 3D printers for smart materials has many of the same advantages as it does for static objects, including the ability to make personalised, made-to-measure materials. ‘We are 3D printing things that then change over time – that reconfigure, that evolve, that adapt, that have agency.’ ‘The fourth dimension time,’ he tells Chemistry World. The use of 3D printers to produce smart materials is called 4D printing, a term coined by Skylar Tibbits, an architect and computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, during a TED talk in 2013. Over the past decade or so, increasing numbers of researchers have been exploring the potential of 3D printers for this purpose. Smart materials will need to jump many hurdles before they can reach their full potential, including how best to manufacture them. Source: © Jacquie Boyd Début Art Printing the future The ability to sense stimuli and respond appropriately is instead preprogrammed into the design of a single material. The key point is that these are not autonomous systems comprised of sophisticated electronics and robotics. We are 3D printing things that then change over time ‘Animate materials could eventually have a transformative effect on all spheres of life,’ the report authors wrote. But these are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what smart materials – that can sense information about the environment around them and then act accordingly – are predicted to achieve in the future.Īccording to a recent Royal Society report, smart materials on the way include window glass that changes porosity in response to humidity, clothing that adapts to environmental conditions and self-healing concretes. From novelty mugs with thermochromic pigments that change colour when holding a hot drink, to photochromic prescription glasses’ lenses that darken when the sun is out, to hydrogels that expand to soak up liquid in disposable nappies and period products. Smart materials are already part of our daily lives.
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