Materials & Process Development

Material and Process Development

When, “it printed!” just isn’t good enough

With ever-expanding options for available materials and printable parts, you need to be deliberate about overcoming the challenges inherent in the physics of the fabrication process. If not addressed, these issues can limit your:

Available materials (new materials, multi-material)
Printable parts (small features, thin walls etc.)
Quality of parts (material homogeneity, surface profile)
Flexibility when using aids such as supports

Conducting geometric analysis at the resolution and scale needed for today’s machines can prove extremely difficult. That’s why many people find shortcuts or workarounds, while others simply avoid or ignore the issues altogether. For some use cases, especially those within regulated industries, ignorance is not an option.
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Dyndrite provides tools that enable engineers, technicians, and researchers to address and overcome fabrication process challenges - opening the door to new materials and previously unprintable part families.

Dyndrite ADK Features ↓

Raster Toolpathing API →

Jetting Challenges

Unlike 2D printing, printheads in 3D printing face a new set of challenges. And unfortunately, the corresponding software to control the heads fails to address these issues. Dyndrite provides the necessary controls to account and compensate for the physical effects of 3D printing, including:

Part density variation due to material binder penetration
High viscosity binders allow for more droplet volume control. At the same time this leads to lower droplet volumes and different powder penetration rates.
Viscosity and surface tension forces relate to if the fluid is jettable and what types of penetration and bleed it may experience.
Variations in drop volume due to printhead acceleration
In 2D printing the paper moves past the head, in 3D the head moves past the material. As print heads move over the plate, based on the velocity of the head a dynamic pressure is generated in the fluid, based on speed of the head. As machines print faster and faster this will be a bigger and bigger problem.
Variations in drop volume due to crosstalk of nozzles in the printhead
When a nozzle fires, adjacent nozzle droplet volumes are affected.
Acoustic crosstalk: pressure waves from neighboring channels feel each other.
Fluid cross talk: waves also propagate through the fluid.
Unexpected droplet sizes due to physical printhead limitations
Print heads nozzles work by oscillating a piezo to generate the droplet. Frequency of oscillation controls the volume of the droplet. Resonance becomes an issue depending on the binder and the frequencies used (up to 50% variation on volume).
Printhead nozzles do not like instantaneous jumps in droplet sizes. One wants to minimize the number of droplet sizes, and the size of the jump.
Part density variation due to displaced/ejected powder
A ballistic effect arises when droplets transfer kinetic energy to the powder. This is based on both the material and the type of binder.
Part density variation due to binder bleed
Based on viscosity, surface tension of the binder and wetting angle of the powder, the binder will bleed from its drop point in x, y, and z.
Binder may even bleed upward due to a capillary effect.
Weak green parts
There is a need to use advanced binders to improve green part strength. These binders require sophisticated toolpath control.
Required for automated depowdering.
Excess binder burning in green parts
We want to minimize the amount of binder that is used, and needs to be burned out during the sintering process.
Part shrinkage
Parts shrink anisotropically during the sintering process. A production manufacturing process requires repeatable quality.

The key to tackling all of the above issues comes down to controlling the droplet volume and location based on physical printhead limitations, the binder, the powder material, the print speed, and the geometry being printed. These compensations enable better parts (thin walls, small features, surface profiles, material properties, part homogeneity, etc.) and more available materials. Dyndite’s Toolpathing API solves these issues, and more.

Why Dyndrite for Material and Process Development Workflow?

Regardless of the process, the aim is to improve the quality of parts, types of printable parts, and/or materials by applying the correct compensations. These compensations are done by changing the droplet volume at specific locations. From the software perspective, this means we want to send RGB or grayscale images to the printhead where the color denotes the droplet volume. Dyndrite puts you in total control of your geometry rasterization process, so you create compensations that enable successful first-time prints.
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Compensations are based on:

hardware (printhead/light engine/bed conditions and part location)
material (binder/powder/resin)
geometry of the part itself

Hardware and material compensations are machine-level corrections for the manufacturing process and are accounted for in a calibration and qualification process. These are machine settings based on the individual machine and the materials being used.

The compensation for the part itself requires advanced analysis of the geometry. Based on “how far inside” the part you are, and the “angle of the nearest” surface, one wants a different droplet size or light intensity. For example, in jetting, due to anti-aliasing you may want larger drops in the center but small droplets near the edge or certain dithering patterns in specific areas.

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Dyndrite enables this advanced analysis via GPU-accelerated volumetric segmentation, which allows us to break up any geometry into various areas of interest. We then assign different colors to each of these areas and by proxy vary the droplets in the machine. These colors represent an additional part-level compensation based on part features, beyond the hardware-, material-, and part location- based compensations.

Dyndrite’s Toolpathing API surpasses current layer-by-layer based Boolean toolpathing methodologies by using its GPU-based voxel engine to enable advanced 3D geometric queries into the part. The current 2.5D approach requires looking up and down 10+ layers at a given layer for part analysis to inform the print strategy for subsequent layers. This approach inherently misses part features such as thin walls due to abrupt changes between layers. This approach is also inherently unstable and error prone compared to the computationally intensive but direct 3D approach Dyndrite uses. Dyndrite’s volumetric geometric feature detection enables users to precisely prescribe custom build recipes/process parameters to reach desired outcomes.

Volumetric 3D assignment of parameters is based on distance from upward or downward faces, or the nearest surface. 3D fields are generated, thresholded, and Booleaned to enable the assignment of different parameters within a single model using the API. The discrete zoning process allows you to develop a robust build strategy, resolving large and small features at the resolution of the machine.

Volumetric segmentation enables high throughput in thicker sections, reducing the need for complex supports, and enabling new materials and special alloys. This ultimately allows you to expand the use of new materials and machines, further enabling new classes of part families.

Learn More About the Raster Toolpath API →

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Example Output

Downskins, 5 distance thresholds pictured

Upskins, 5 distance thresholds pictured

Distance based inskin, 5 distance thresholds pictured

* Machine OEMs tend to cut corners by conducting layer Booleans up to 10 layers up and down in order to determine upskin and downskin. This is in contrast to Dyndrite conducting a true volumetric analysis.

Dyndrite ADK product tiers

Accelerate your journey.

Dyndrite ADK

Base

Base Additive CAM features needed for build prep and slicing to get you printing as quickly as possible.

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Dyndrite ADK

Pro

All the professional features you need to do materials and process development to create better parts, nest, generate supports, and build a bespoke application.

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Dyndrite ADK

Enterprise

For when you’re going into production or need something custom. All the features of ADK Pro, plus scriptable lights out automation.

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The future of additive manufacturing materials & process development is here

When, “it printed!” just isn’t good enough