Digital material assembly by passive means and modular isotropic lattice extruder system (MILES)

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10710698-B2
Application number	US-201615340244-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 1, 2016
Priority date	May 7, 2015
Publication date	Jul 14, 2020
Grant date	Jul 14, 2020

Abstract

A set of machines and related systems build structures by the additive assembly of discrete parts. These digital material assemblies constrain the constituent parts to a discrete set of possible positions and orientations. In doing so, the structures exhibit many of the properties inherent in digital communication such as error correction, fault tolerance and allow the assembly of precise structures with comparatively imprecise tools. Assembly of discrete cellular lattices by a Modular Isotropic Lattice Extruder System (MILES) is implemented by pulling strings of lattice elements through a forming die that enforces geometry constraints that lock the elements into a rigid structure that can then be pushed against and extruded out of the die as an assembled, loadbearing structure.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system implementing a modular isotropic lattice extrusion comprising:
a plurality of substantially identical triangular voxel building blocks, each voxel building block having one or more first geometrical constraints constructed to mate with one or more complementary second geometrical constraints on another substantially identical triangular voxel building block;
a first assembly platform for locomotion and joining of the voxel building blocks having a locking mechanism that includes guide rails used as a forming die having third geometrical constraints that cooperate with the first and second geometrical constraints of the voxel building blocks to lock the voxel building blocks together; the assembly platform forming one or more chains of voxel polyhedra
the one or more chains of voxel polyhedra each having a length and acting as material feeds;
a motion mechanism constructed to enable four or more of the chains of voxel polyhedra to be fed to a second assembly platform, to be locomoted through the second assembly platform, and forced into a final assembled isotropic lattice having increasing length as more voxel polyhedra are added, the length of the isotropic lattice being adjustable by adjusting the lengths of the chains of voxel polyhedra.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one chain of voxel polyhedra comprises a plurality of polyhedra with connections along at least one node such that a chain of polyhedra may be formed with at least one degree of freedom between each neighboring polyhedra element.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one chain of voxel polyhedra has a specific distance constraint defining a spacing between the voxel polyhedra.

4. The system of claim 3 , wherein the distance constraint is a dimension of the voxel building blocks.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the locking mechanism includes an eccentric self-engaging cam that can be rotated into a locked position by a lever that can be pulled past a lock enforcement feature in the die.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the lock enforcement feature is either active or passive, and if active, lock engagement at specific nodes in the lattice can be programmatically controlled enabling arbitrary structural geometries to be generated, and if passive, lock engagement is built into the voxel building blocks.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein the locking mechanism is actuated as the material feed passes by an actuating feature as it passes through the forming die, thereby reversibly connecting chains of voxel polyhedra from the material feed without need for external hardware.

8. The system of claim 5 , wherein the locking mechanism comprises a self-tightening cammed pin with a tab that can be activated by a passive feature on the assembly platform.

9. The system of claim 1 further comprising a plurality of connected multiples of itself, whereby an extrusion head has the ability to extrude, in parallel, a plurality of cellular lattice structures.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the forming die is constructed as a modular system attached to a gridded support structure.

11. The system of claim 1 , wherein the motion mechanism is a driver cartridge that includes a motorized screw constructed to push the chains of voxel polyhedra on the assembly platform with the chains of voxel polyhedra still being attached to the material feed, pulling voxel polyhedra from the material feed onto the second assembly platform.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second assembly platform comprises four guide rails that support the material feed such that a single drive mechanism can push four strings of material feed onto the second assembly platform simultaneously.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the second assembly platform comprises eight guide rail modules, and a single locomotion module is structured to extrude a 2×2 lattice.

14. The system of claim 1 comprising a single chain of voxel polyhedra.

Assignees

• Massachusetts Inst Technology

Inventors

• Carney Matthew Eli
• Jenett Benjamin
• Gershenfeld Neil

Classifications

• B29C64/106 Primary

  using only liquids or viscous materials, e.g. depositing a continuous bead of viscous material · CPC title

• B64F5/10

  Manufacturing or assembling aircraft, e.g. jigs therefor · CPC title

• B33Y80/00

  Products made by additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B33Y10/00

  Processes of additive manufacturing · CPC title

• B23P19/04

  for assembling or disassembling parts · CPC title