6.09 MATT-Multimaterial Additive Technology and Tools

Additive Manufacturing (AM) comprises a variety of technologies, each with specific
capabilities, advantages, and challenges. This project aims to develop new methods and tools to compare and evaluate the performance of existing AM technologies and expand the domain of multi-technology multi-material AM, aiding decision-makers in selecting the appropriate solution for their production problems.

During the first year, MATT will focus on novel approaches to compare the existing solutions considering a holistic perspective and multi-objective decision making.
Key aspects to be considered in the model we will develop include process capability, ease of use, flexibility, costs, productivity, sizes and features, and sustainability. The project will further explore the possibility of exploiting one or more AM processes for multimaterial Additive Manufacturing to tackle the challenging fabrication process of emerging products. At least two potentially disruptive case studies will be considered, addressing the automation and fashion domains.

Indeed, multimaterial AM has the potential to revolutionize manufacturing by enabling the fabrication of complex structures with new and enhanced functionalities. For instance, the combination of technologies such as extrusion based, inkjet, dispensing, aerosol, plasma jetting, enables the fabrication of mechatronics components and multi-layer PCBs, with structural elements and conductive pads/tracks on free-form surfaces, also with components embedded in the substrates.

However, Multimaterial AM presents several challenges that need to be addressed:

• achieving good adhesion between the different materials, as they often have different chemical, physical and thermo-mechanical properties;
• controlling the distribution of the materials to achieve the desired composition and properties of the final product;
• studying the process strategies and optimize the process parameters to achieve the desired properties of the final product;
• investigating the material-processes-product correlation
• design new solutions, tools and design approaches that can handle the complexity of multimaterial AM.
• Investigating powder recycling in multimaterial AM, while developing new methods and techniques to separate and classify different powders, as well as developing strategies to reuse the recycled powder while maintaining the required properties and performance of the final product.