High-Speed Droplet-Based Manufacturing of High-Precision Structural Components and Photonic BandGap Materials

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

This grant funds research seeking to further the development of a high-speed droplet-based net-form manufacturing technology for the fabrication of high-precision three-dimensional aluminum and aluminum alloy components. Successful development relies the knowledge base acquired from previous NSF and industry supported work. In the NSFsupported work, highly uniform molten aluminum alloy droplet streams were reliably generated from capillary stream break-up in a custom fabricated state-of-the-art droplet generator and deposition facility, and preliminary three-dimensional componets were fabricated. In the industry supported work, molten solder droplets were charged and deflected in a manner similar to ink-jet printing and targeted onto a circuit board with an accuracy of 12.5 micrometer. Hence, the union of these efforts forms the knowledge base for the proposed net-form manufacturing technology. The crux of the this research is the determination of the inter-relationships between processing parameters, structure and properties. To this end, a research plan that consists of experimentation coupled with numerical modeling and materials characterization is proposed, with information gained from the experimental and characterization studies serving as feedback into the modeling effort. A novel extension will be explored in droplet-based manufacturing and to investigate the fabrication of photonic bandgap (PBG) materials. The extent to which the processing parameters for PGB materials fabrication can be extrapolated from the relationships governing aluminum alloy structural component fabrication will be ascertained as a first step towards the fabrication of PBG and other multimaterial components.