Conformal Additive Manufacturing

Unmet Need
Despite the rapid advance of additive manufacturing technologies in recent years, methods to fully encase objects with
multilayer, thick features are still undeveloped.

Technology Overview
Johns Hopkins faculty member, Dr. Gregory Chirikjian, along with colleagues from JHU and Applied Physics Lab, have developed conformal printing around objects. As opposed to current conformal approaches that either deposit a single layer of material or require large amounts of sacrificial support material, this invention (through two novel, separate layering approaches) fully defines multiple layers from a specified initial object to a final desired object without the need for sacrificial support material. In addition, this invention enables the printing of voids or completely hollow features inside of the build volume, which can be used to influence structural properties and failure modes of the printed objects. Furthermore, both aspects of the invention can be used to print directly onto a preexisting object to conduct repairs, introduce additional capabilities (retrofitting), add additional strength to the printed object, and/or produce seamless packaging of the object.

Stage of Development
Software has been developed

Publication(s)
"Algorithms for Multilayer Conformal Additive Manufacturing", JCISE-15-1434.

Category(s):