Additive Manufacturing

Creating Innovative Functionalities for 3D Printed Parts and Products by Research & Development in Polymer Materials for Additive Manufacturing

The goal of the Additive Manufacturing (AM) program of Brightlands Materials Center is to accelerate innovation for our industrial partners and support their success in the additive manufacturing market. We do this by exploiting the unique manufacturing freedom of AM which allows a high level of control of the material composition of a printed part. This gives the opportunity to create parts and products that have an integrated functionality which cannot easily be created in another way.

We focus on two research programs:

Mechanical reinforcement and sensing functionality by polymer additive manufacturing using continuous fibers.
Innovative functionality in 3D printed parts by multimaterial photopolymer additive manufacturing.

Expertises, Capabilities and Fundamental Knowledge

We are strongly driven by industrial application challenges and our core competences are in polymer material expertise, additive manufacturing process know-how and computational materials modeling and simulations. In our labs we operate commercial 3D printers as well as 3D printers customized to our own specifications and design requirements. Being located at the Chemelot Brightlands Campus gives us access to a large field of materials science competences and facilities.

We have close connections with AMSYSTEMS Center and Holst Centre which are research centers for additive manufacturing equipment and flexible electronics respectively. We partner with Eindhoven University of Technology and University of Maastricht for our PhD and post-doc students who develop fundamental knowledge on additive manufacturing materials.

Program – Mechanical reinforcement and sensing functionality by polymer additive manufacturing using continuous fibers

Improvement of mechanical reinforcement of 3D printed parts is one of the current challenges in additive manufacturing to transition from prototypes to functional parts that meet similar requirements as for example injection molded parts do. A smartly designed part with embedded continuous fibers can improve mechanical strength where needed.

The embedding of for example continuous carbon fibers makes it possible to monitor how the structural integrity of a product – e.g. its deformation – changes over time by measuring the changes in the electrical resistance through the fibers in the composite part. In this way, delaminations, internal deformations and temperature profiles can be more accurately determined at positions in the part where that was not possible before.

Potential applications are found in the automotive industry for functional test parts, embedded sensors in orthotic applications and structural integrity monitoring in the aerospace industry.

Program – Innovative functionality in 3D printed parts by multimaterial photopolymer additive manufacturing

The basic concept of this program is the deposition of one photopolymer material into another, thus leading to development of 3D parts with innovative functionality based on the clever composition of different materials with a range of properties. This approach combines the typical advantages of photopolymer printing like high accuracy, high resolution and excellent surface finish with unique embedded functionality in the part.

Brightlands Materials Center has significant experience with development and modification of photopolymers to create innovative product properties for customers. This ranges from biocompatible photopolymers with inorganic fillers for 3D printing of dental crowns and bridges, to thermally conductive materials for heat management of integrated electronic devices and permeable substrates for growth of intestinal cells in an artificial human gut model.

Current examples are the development of multi-color dental materials for crowns and bridges and development of photopolymers with a range of dielectric permittivities to create lens antennas.

Interested in our activities?

Please contact us.

Richard Janssen,
Business Developer Management
richard.janssen@brightlandsmc.com

Tessa ten Cate, Program manager

“It’s fascinating to see how many new 3D printing applications are being developed. Additive manufacturing is growing beyond a hype and maturing into a production technology. However, innovations in materials as well as 3D printing technology are needed to reach its full potential. We are working in a multidisciplinary team to develop solutions for these application challenges.”