Techniques for metallic material deposition in additive fabrication and related systems and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11059223-B2
Application number	US-201715785981-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 17, 2017
Priority date	Oct 18, 2016
Publication date	Jul 13, 2021
Grant date	Jul 13, 2021

Abstract

According to some aspects, a method is provided of forming a metallic object via additive fabrication, the method comprising obtaining a geometric description of a first object with an exterior surface, generating a geometric description of a second object, the second object bounded by the exterior surface of the first object and having one or more voids, fabricating said second object via additive fabrication based on said geometric description of the second object, and depositing a metallic material onto said second object, wherein the metallic material is deposited into said voids of second object.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of forming an object via additive fabrication and metallic deposition, the method comprising:
obtaining a geometric description of the object, the geometric description of the object defining an exterior surface;
generating a geometric description of a skeleton structure based on the geometric description of the object, the skeleton structure being completely bounded by the exterior surface of the object and having one or more voids;
fabricating the skeleton structure via additive fabrication based on said geometric description of the skeleton structure; and
depositing, subsequent to fabrication of the skeleton structure, a metallic material onto the fabricated skeleton structure, wherein the metallic material is deposited into the one or more voids of the skeleton structure and fills at least some of the one or more voids, thereby forming the object,
wherein said depositing step comprises an electroless plating process.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said depositing step deposits the metallic material over the entire surface of the skeleton structure at a constant rate.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the geometric description of the skeleton structure is arranged to be offset from the exterior surface of the object by a distance based on an amount of deposition expected during the step of depositing the material onto the skeleton structure.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the skeleton structure comprises a lattice of repeating cell units, the cell units each comprising at least one void within.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising determining sizes of the cell units of the lattice based on the geometric description of the object.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein sizes of the cell units of the lattice increase in size with increasing depth from surfaces of the object.

7. The method of claim 1 , further comprising removing the skeleton structure subsequent to deposition of the metallic material.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein depositing the metallic material onto said skeleton structure comprises depositing at least some of the metallic material within an interior of the skeleton structure.

9. The method of claim 7 , further comprising depositing additional metallic material into void spaces left by removal of the skeleton structure.

10. A method of forming an object based on a skeleton structure formed by an additive fabrication device, the object to be formed by a process of depositing a material onto the skeleton structure, wherein said process of depositing comprises an electroless plating process, the method comprising:
generating a geometric description of the skeleton structure based on a three-dimensional model of the object, the skeleton structure being completely bounded by the exterior surface of the object and having one or more voids,
wherein the geometric description of the skeleton structure is arranged to be offset from an exterior surface of the object by a distance selected based on an amount of deposition necessary to fill at least some of the one or more voids during the process of depositing a material onto the skeleton structure subsequent to its fabrication, wherein said process of depositing comprises an electroless plating process, and
wherein the skeleton structure comprises a lattice of repeating cell units, the cell units each comprising at least one void within; and

generating, using at least one processor, instructions that, when executed by the additive fabrication device, cause the additive fabrication device to fabricate the skeleton structure.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein generating the geometric description of the skeleton structure further comprises determining sizes of the cell units of the lattice based on the three-dimensional model of the object.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein sizes of the cell units of the lattice increase in size with increasing depth from surfaces of the object.

Assignees

• Formlabs Inc

Inventors

• Slaczka Marcin
• Zguris Zachary
• Keeter Matthew

Classifications

• B22F1/102

  Metallic powder coated with organic material · CPC title

• B22F10/80 Primary

  Data acquisition or data processing · CPC title

• B22F10/28

  Powder bed fusion, e.g. selective laser melting [SLM] or electron beam melting [EBM] · CPC title

• B29C64/188 Primary

  involving additional operations performed on the added layers, e.g. smoothing, grinding or thickness control (surface shaping B29C59/00; after-treatment of articles without altering their shape B29C71/00) · CPC title

• B33Y40/20

  Post-treatment, e.g. curing, coating or polishing · CPC title