This will give designers and engineers access to millions of 2D and 3D CAD models from more than 2,500 manufacturer catalogs, and accelerate high-quality product design through digital component information from the intuitive search engine, which will allow them to add the engineering data they want right into their designs. The CADENAS visual search engine has been directly integrated into the parametric, open source FreeCAD software, version 0.19 in a new add-on. This model points to additional physical mechanisms that might need to be considered to close the gap between experiments and modeling,” explained co-author Andy Pascall.įuture research by the team will involve exploring droplet ejection across more process parameters.ģ Integrated Into Open Source FreeCAD “We don’t currently have a good understanding of all of the physics that occur right when the droplet breaks off from the metal jet.

Then, thanks to the video analysis, the team built a computational model that can simulate the ejection morphology of the tin droplets, and demonstrated that LMJ, while repeatable and very stable, is very tough to model. First, they built a custom liquid metal 3D printer that could dispense tin droplets, and used it as a testbed for droplet-on-demand, freeform metal printing, with high-speed video helping to track the dynamics of the droplets during ejection. The researchers simulated the ejection process and breakup dynamics of droplets in a novel AM process called Liquid Metal Jetting, or LMJ, which jets molten droplets of liquid metal from a nozzle to 3D print parts without the use of powder or lasers. Image courtesy of Andy Pascall/LLNL.Ī team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory ( LLNL) published a research paper about the dynamics of droplet ejection that could help advance 3D printing. The simulated droplet shape significantly differs from experiments, highlighting the fact that essential physics appear to be missing from the model.

A comparison between the experimentally observed ejected droplet shape at break-up (a) and the simulated droplet shape (b) at various operating conditions approaching the experimental conditions.

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