Large Format Additive Manufacturing in Furniture design with novel cork based polymeric materials

Resumen

Additive manufacturing is entering its mature age. Since the early eighties when the rapid prototyping first technologies were developed by Charles Hull and Scott Crump, these technologies have been continuously evolving introducing new processes and improving the existing ones. This evolution is reflected in a better reliability that results in the real application of AM in the production chains of certain industries. All these technologies may differ in the technological approach, with different energy sources and materials, but they all share a common factor, that is the layer by layer construction approach. In this work a brief review of the state of the art of large format additive manufacturing will be presented, identifying the most remarkable existing equipments in this context. INNANOMAT research group from Cadiz University has been several years working with this technology using a combined approach of material developments and product design. One of the main tasks of the presented project is to identify potential uses and applications of this material by the large format additive manufacturing. Specific research has been done to identify areas of interest such as aeronautics, maritime, domestic appliances, habitat, sports and leisure or automotive. Some interesting developments and design applications have been done in the habitat sector, obtaining one to one scale prototypes of furniture that match the potential that these technologies offer when dealing with complex shapes exploiting their capabilities. These specific design tools in the context of Design for Additive manufacturing will be also presented.