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Center for Science of Heterogenous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D)

The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the Center author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.

Center Overview

The Center for Science of Heterogenous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D) focuses on 3D printing. Its work encompasses many different additive printing and manufacturing methods, and will enable rational design and creation of new material feedstocks; understanding of the material properties, protocols, and design rules used in 3D printing; and development of new 3D printing methods for novel materials and composites.

The mission of SHAP3D is to provide the fundamental knowledge for additively printed heterogeneous products that integrate multiple engineering materials with complex 3D structures and diverse functionality. Through research, SHAP3D is developing the critical and necessary insight into the fundamental structure-processing-property relationships to predict and control the integration of diverse materials for 3D printing.

The vision of SHAP3D is to provide its participants with new, validated materials with tunable properties and superior functionality for integration in real-world, heterogeneous designs. SHAP3D aims to enhance national excellence in additive manufacturing research and development that has direct relevance to industry, and develop a cadre of diverse undergraduate and graduate students with world-class training.

Universities

University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Georgia Institute of Technology
University of Connecticut

View Center Website

Center Personnel

Christopher Hansen
Site Director - UMass Lowell
+1 978 934 2932
Christopher_Hansen@uml.edu

Jerry Qi
Site Director - Georgia Tech
+1 404 385 2457
qih@me.gatech.edu

Patrick Drane
Technical Program Manager
+1 978 934 2996
Patrick_Drane@uml.edu

Joey Mead
Center Director
+1 978 934 3446
Joey_Mead@uml.edu

Anson Ma
Site Director - UCONN
+1 860 486 4630
Anson_Ma@uconn.edu

Research Focus

SHAP3D's research projects are in one or more of the following areas:

Design

Achieve unique properties through design leveraging topology optimization, multi-material printing and blending.

Material

Develop novel and enhanced materials and the understanding of the interfacial bonding of the multimaterial systems.

Modeling

Formulate and validate models to achieve faster printing, and more reliable and functional components and systems.

Printing methods

Improve and create new printing methods, concepts, and systems.

Awards

1822157

Phase 1 IUCRC at University of Connecticut: Center for Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D)

The Center for Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D) will serve the diverse interests of industry, government, and academia to address fundamental research challenges to meet the commercial needs of industry for heterogeneous 3D printing of materials. Additive manufacturing (AM) is viewed as a research area for global competitive advantage by industries such as automotive, medical, aerospace, and consumer products. SHAP3D aims to accelerate expansion and competitiveness of the domestic AM industry and its customers by addressing two critical market needs: (1) the growth of AM into more complex topologies, heterogeneous, and multi-functional applications that command high margins commensurate with their increased performance, and (2) the expansion of AM into lower margin industries via order-of-magnitude improvements in throughput, material-per-performance cost reductions, and ease-of-use design rules that enable SMEs and large companies to rapidly adopt advanced techniques. The Center will disseminate its design, material and process research to industrial members and practitioners, and the broader academic community. SHAP3D will provide a technically trained workforce, with industrial perspective, through the close collaboration between industry and academia. UCONN site's educational activities include summer programs for high school students and teachers, outreach to minority graduate students, and certificate programs in additive manufacturing.The SHAP3D research will be driven by the performance requirements of industry, built from a technical foundation of the fundamental structure-processing-property relationships associated with the voxel-level control and integration of diverse processes and materials. The enormous number of material combinations possible in these multi-material systems multiplied by the parameter space represented within processes with voxel-level state-variable control requires fundamental understanding of the material (constituents, fillers, interfaces) properties, processing protocols, and design rules to reliably predict the properties of products. Despite the diverse materials and process combinations, they are unified by many underlying physical principles related to melting, processing, and solidification, and interfacial physics for heterogeneous additive printing of materials. The Center will support members' choice of AM methods and research that encompasses numerous additive printing methods, such as fused filament fabrication (FFF), stereolithography/digital light processing (SLA/DLP), ink-jet, and other additive approaches. UCONN will leverage its strengths and will focus on three thrust areas: (i) automation, (ii) integrating polymers with non-polymers, and (iii) bio-printing. The Center and UCONN-site will add significant value for industry by addressing their vision to additively manufacture dissimilar materials into heterogeneous, valued-added products imbued with previously unattained biological, chemical, electrical, and mechanical functionality.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >

1822141

Phase I IUCRC at Georgia Institute of Technology: Center for Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials SHAP3D

The I/UCRC Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D) will serve the diverse interests of industry, government, and academia to address fundamental challenges to meet the commercial needs of industry for heterogeneous 3D printing of materials. The additive manufacturing (AM) is viewed as a research area for global competitive advantage by industries such as automotive, medical, aerospace, and consumer products. SHAP3D aims to accelerate expansion and competitiveness of the domestic AM industry and its customers by addressing two critical market needs: (1) the growth of AM into more complex topologies, heterogeneous, and multi-functional applications that command high margins commensurate with their increased performance, and (2) the expansion of AM into lower margin industries via order-of-magnitude improvements in throughput, material-per-performance cost reductions, and ease-of-use design rules that enable small and medium-sized enterprises and large companies to rapidly adopt advanced techniques. The Center will disseminate its design, material and process research to industrial members and the broader academic community. SHAP3D will provide a technically trained workforce, with industrial perspective, through the close collaboration between industry and academia. GT site-specific educational programs include collaborating with an AM-related REU site and outreaching to K-12 through NSF research experience for teacher (RET) program. The SHAP3D research supported by Georgia Tech (GT) will be driven by the performance requirements of industry, built from a technical foundation of the fundamental structure-processing-property relationships associated with the voxel-level control and integration of diverse processes and materials. The enormous number of material combinations possible in these multi-material systems multiplied by the parameter space represented within processes with voxel-level state-variable control requires a fundamental understanding of the material (constituents, fillers, interfaces) properties, processing protocols, and design rules to reliably predict the properties of products. Despite the diverse materials and process combinations, they are unified by many underlying physical principles related to melting, processing, and solidification, and interfacial physics for heterogeneous additive printing of materials. The Center will support members' choice of AM methods and research that encompasses numerous additive printing methods, including fused filament fabrication (FFF), stereolithography/digital light processing (SLA/DLP), inkjet, and other additive approaches. GT-site will use its expertise to support research related to 3D printing-based design methods, modeling for the 3D printing process, novel resins, and functional devices. The Center and GT-site will add significant value for the industry by addressing their vision to additively manufacture dissimilar materials into heterogeneous, valued-added products imbued with previously unattained biological, chemical, electrical, and mechanical functionality.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >

1822147

Phase I IUCRC at University of Massachusetts Lowell: Center for Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D)

The IUCRC Science of Heterogeneous Additive Printing of 3D Materials (SHAP3D) will serve the diverse interests of industry, government, and academia to address fundamental research challenges to meet the commercial needs of industry for heterogeneous 3D printing of materials. The additive manufacturing (AM) is viewed as a research area for global competitive advantage by industries such as automotive, medical, aerospace, and consumer products. SHAP3D aims to accelerate expansion and competitiveness of the domestic AM industry and its customers by addressing two critical market needs: (1) the growth of AM into more complex topologies, heterogeneous, and multi-functional applications that command high margins commensurate with their increased performance, and (2) the expansion of AM into lower margin industries via order-of-magnitude improvements in throughput, material-per-performance cost reductions, and ease-of-use design rules that enable SMEs and large companies to rapidly adopt advanced techniques. The Center will disseminate its design, material and process research to industrial members and practitioners, and the broader academic community. SHAP3D will provide a technically trained workforce, with industrial perspective, through the close collaboration between industry and academia. UML site-specific educational programs associated with this I/UCRC include K-12 modular block, freshman Co-op Scholars and online education programs. The SHAP3D Center research will be driven by the performance requirements of industry, built from a technical foundation of the fundamental structure-processing-property relationships associated with the voxel-level control and integration of diverse processes and materials. The enormous number of material combinations possible in these multi-material systems multiplied by the parameter space represented within processes with voxel-level state-variable control requires fundamental understanding of the material (constituent matrices, fillers/additives, interfaces) properties, processing protocols, and design rules to reliably predict the properties of products and parts. Despite the diverse materials and process combinations, they are unified by many underlying physical principles related to melting, processing, and solidification, and interfacial physics for heterogeneous additive printing of materials.. The Center will support members' choice of AM methods and envisions research that encompasses numerous additive printing methods, such as fused filament fabrication (FFF), stereolithography/digital light projection (SLA/DLP), and other additive approaches. The University of Massachusetts, Lowell (UML) site will add research strength in modeling, material characterization, processing, rheology, multi-material printing, and new materials for additive manufacturing. The Center and UML site will add significant value for industry by addressing their vision to additively manufacture dissimilar materials into heterogeneous, valued-added products imbued with previously unattained biological, chemical, electrical, and mechanical functionality.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. Read More >

Member Organizations

IUCRC affiliated member organizations are displayed as submitted by the Center. Non-federal organizations are not selected, approved, or otherwise endorsed by the National Science Foundation.

Air Force Research Laboratory
Akita Innovations
Barnes Group
DEVCOM Armaments Center
DEVCOM Soldier Center (Formerly NSRDEC)
Greene Tweed
HP Inc.
Hutchinson
Integrity Industrial Inkjet Integration, LLC.
Karagozian & Case
Nanoptics Inc.
Raytheon Technologies (Formerly United Technologies Corporation)
Stratasys, Inc.