A team of researchers was recently able to come up with a 3D printing procedure for creation of objects that can change into a wide range of various shapes as a response to higher temperature. The team built the objects by printing different layers of shape memory polymers with every layer designed to react differently upon exposure to heat. A professor at the George W- Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering under the Georgia Institute of Technology, Jerry Qi, explains, “This new approach significantly simplifies and increases the potential of 4D printing by incorporating the mechanical programming post-processing step directly into the 3-D printing process. This allows high-resolution 3D-printed components to be designed by computer simulation, 3D printed, and then directly and rapidly transformed into new permanent configurations by simply heating.”

 

The research was published recently. This new development of 3D-printed objects deeply follows previous works done by the team that involved usage of some smart shape memory polymers or the SMPs that have the ability to keep one shape in their memory and alter to another programmed shape as the heat supply stays constant to formulate objects that can easily fold themselves by hinges. Qi further adds, “The approach can achieve printing time and material savings up to 90 percent, while completely eliminating time-consuming mechanical programming from the design and manufacturing workflow.”

 

 

In order to demonstrate the potential of this new method, the team formulated multiple objects that can expand and bend instantly as these are immersed under hot water. The shapes include a flower whose petals can bends just like that of real daisy reacting to sunlight as well as in a lattice-shaped object that can expand by approx. eight times of its initial size. A postdoc researchers working at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) adds, “ Our composite materials at room temperature have one material that is soft but can be programmed to contain internal stress, while the other material is stiff.”