Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

The application of polymeric 3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) for scientific and industrial applications is rapidly increasing and, simultaneously, interest in printable smart materials is also increasing. This technology allows for an easy transfer from the design to the fabrication of a part.

Significant challenges are emerging and driving current research and development. The first is to improve the printing resolution by exploiting mechanical, chemical, or physical tools without affecting the yield and the printing time. Addressing smart functional materials suitable for specific customized applications is another challenge. Inter alia, the combination of nanomaterials and polymers offers new possibilities for printing objects that are characterized by peculiar thermal, electrical, mechanical, and optical properties.

Accordingly, this Special Issue will showcase research papers and review articles outlining recent progress and innovative approaches for polymeric 3D printing, defined in terms of functional materials synthesis and processing, their exploitation or integration into devices, microstructures, microsensors and composites for different application fields, improvement in 3D Printing technologies and design methodologies or optimizations of the same. Development and descriptions of subsequent miniaturized devices and systems (MEMS, microsensors, microfluidics, and devices for different application fields like energy, bio, environment, etc.) obtained through polymeric 3D printing are welcome and strongly encouraged.

Dr. Matteo Cocuzza
Dr. Simone Luigi Marasso
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Micromachines is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

polymeric 3D printing
rapid prototyping
functional materials
stereolithography
fused deposition modeling
selective laser sintering
ink-jet 3D printing
DLP 3D printing
2-photon polymerization
polymeric composites
3D-printed miniaturized devices
3D-printed microsensors
3D-printed microfluidics
3D-printed energy devices
3D-printed biodevices
multi-materials 3D printing

Published Papers (2 papers)

Download All Papers

Research

Jump to: Review

9 pages, 8203 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Advanced Infill Designs for 3D Printed Shape-Memory Components

by Daniel Koske and Andrea Ehrmann

Micromachines 2021, 12(10), 1225; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12101225 - 08 Oct 2021

Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1743

Abstract

Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is one of the most often used polymers in 3D printing based on the fused deposition modeling (FDM) method. On the other hand, PLA is also a shape memory polymer (SMP) with a relatively low glass transition temperature of ~60 °C, depending on the exact material composition. This enables, on the one hand, so-called 4D printing, i.e., printing flat objects which are deformed afterwards by heating them above the glass transition temperature, shaping them and cooling them down in the desired shape. On the other hand, objects from PLA which have been erroneously deformed, e.g., bumpers during an accident, can recover their original shape to a certain amount, depending on the applied temperature, the number of deformation cycles, and especially on the number of broken connections inside the object. Here, we report on an extension of a previous study, investigating optimized infill designs which avoid breaking in 3-point bending tests and thus allow for multiple repeated destruction and recovery cycles with only a small loss in maximum force at a certain deflection. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements and Applications in Polymeric 3D Printing)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

Review

Jump to: Research

24 pages, 3562 KiB

Open AccessReview

Directed Assembly of Particles for Additive Manufacturing of Particle-Polymer Composites

by Soheila Shabaniverki and Jaime J. Juárez

Micromachines 2021, 12(8), 935; https://doi.org/10.3390/mi12080935 - 07 Aug 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 3517

Abstract

Particle-polymer dispersions are ubiquitous in additive manufacturing (AM), where they are used as inks to create composite materials with applications to wearable sensors, energy storage materials, and actuation elements. It has been observed that directional alignment of the particle phase in the polymer dispersion can imbue the resulting composite material with enhanced mechanical, electrical, thermal or optical properties. Thus, external field-driven particle alignment during the AM process is one approach to tailoring the properties of composites for end-use applications. This review article provides an overview of externally directed field mechanisms (e.g., electric, magnetic, and acoustic) that are used for particle alignment. Illustrative examples from the AM literature show how these mechanisms are used to create structured composites with unique properties that can only be achieved through alignment. This article closes with a discussion of how particle distribution (i.e., microstructure) affects mechanical properties. A fundamental description of particle phase transport in polymers could lead to the development of AM process control for particle-polymer composite fabrication. This would ultimately create opportunities to explore the fundamental impact that alignment has on particle-polymer composite properties, which opens up the possibility of tailoring these materials for specific applications. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advancements and Applications in Polymeric 3D Printing)

► Show Figures