Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research

Title

Development of Direct Printing/Curing Process for 3D Structural Electronics

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Publication Date

11-2013

Abstract

3D structural electronics is a new paradigm in fabricating electronics with high design complexity. Basically, manufacturing of 3D structural electronics consists of several processes: structure building, wire creation, and pick-and-place of electrical components. In this work, a 3D structure was built in a commercial AM machine, and conductive wires were created on the 3D structure with a predetermined design of an electronic circuit. Generally, 2D wire paths are projected to a 3D surface, and a tool path for the wire is generated in advance. And a direct printing device follows the tool path to draw the conductive wires on the surface, while a direct curing device simultaneously hardens the created wires using thermal/radiation energy. This direct printing/curing device was developed by combining a micro-dispensing device and a light focusing module installed in a motorized xyz stage. Several experiments were accomplished using photocrosslinkable materials filled with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). Finally, a 3D electronics prototype was fabricated to show the compelling evidence that the suggested manufacturing methods and materials would be promising in manufacturing 3D structural electronics.

Publication Title

ASME 2013 International Mechanical Engineering Congress and Exposition

Volume

2A: Advanced Manufacturing

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