DESIGNED ECOLOGIES
PROTOTYPING ● ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING ● MECHANICAL DESIGN ● INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAMWORK
More details on skills
3D printed biopolymers for scalable complex structures
6 month project with MIT's Mediated Matter Group, Winter to Spring 2019, Cambridge, MA, USA
Team of interdisciplinary researchers under the supervision of Professor Neri Oxman
CONTEXT
Designed Ecologies aims to interrupt the industrial cycle of waste production through developing organic material alternatives. Materials from healthy ecosystems can be temporarily diverted to human builds, and at the end of their materially programmed lifecycle, naturally decay back into the environment.
SOURCE
Leverage natural resources for renewable and biocompatible polymers
BUILD
Convert natural resources into human builds by programming materials to have variable mechanical, optical, and olfactory properties
DECAY
Program materials to decay in a controlled manner on a set schedule to return resources back to the earth
FABRICATION
My role was primarily to design, assemble, and run a platform to 3D print biomaterial structures of varying scales. I worked with a fellow architect to design a custom 1.2 x 1.8m CNC gantry with a pneumatic hydrogel extruder with drying racks layered below the printing surface.
Biopolymer 3D printer head
3D print surface
3D printer system assembly
PRINTER CALIBRATION
A fellow bioengineer developed biopolymer materials for 3D printing adjusting them to achieve specific material properties.
For each biopolymer material, I helped calibrate the 3D printer hardware and software to achieve predictable printing results. Hardware adjustments were made to the extruder nozzle shape and position. Software adjustments were made to the printing pressure and speed.
INGREDIENTS
32% pectin
5% glycerin
32% pectin
5% glycerin
3% match
Viscosity: 9.8 Pa•s
Viscosity: 11.2 Pa•s
MATERIAL PROPERTIES
90% gold copal
10% beeswax
Viscosity: 10.5 Pa•s
32% pectin
5% glycerin
1% indigo
Viscosity: 12.0 Pa•s
PRINT PRESSURE
PRINT SPEED
NOZZLE WIDTH
NOZZLE HEIGHT
PRINTING
Initially, smaller structures were printed and assembled to test the material composition and printing techniques. Adjustments were made as necessary to enable variable flexibility, decay, stiffness, and other mechanical properties.
Test prints
10 x 10cm test prints experimenting with layering
Test prints folded into 10 x 10 x 10cm flower
Test prints folded into 10 x 10 x 10cm flower
Larger designs were eventually printed to test the material limitations in terms of colour, design, scalability, and complexity. The results showed that biomaterials can be programmed to adopt varied physical properties useful in the production of scalable complex structures.
