Automated melt electrowritting platform with real-time process monitoring

Pawel Mieszczanek; Sebastian Eggert; Peter Corke; Dietmar W Hutmacher

doi:10.1016/j.ohx.2021.e00246

Automated melt electrowritting platform with real-time process monitoring

HardwareX. 2021 Nov 11:10:e00246. doi: 10.1016/j.ohx.2021.e00246. eCollection 2021 Oct.

Authors

Pawel Mieszczanek^{1

2}, Sebastian Eggert³, Peter Corke^{4

5}, Dietmar W Hutmacher^{1

2

6}

Affiliations

¹ Centre in Transformative Biomimetics in Bioengineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
² School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technical University of Munich, Garching 85748, Germany.
⁴ QUT Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
⁵ School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Faculty of Engineering, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.
⁶ ARC ITTC in Additive Biomanufacturing, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia.

Abstract

Melt electrowriting (MEW) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology with the ability to fabricate complex designs with high-resolution. The utility of MEW is studied in many fields including tissue engineering and soft robotics. However, current MEW hardware offers only basic functionality and is often designed and built in-house. This affects results replication across different MEW devices and slows down the technological advancement. To address these issues, we present an automated MEW platform with real-time process parameter monitoring and control. We validate the developed platform by demonstrating the ability to accurately print polymer structures and successfully measure and adjust parameters during the printing process. The platform enables the collection of large volumes of data that can be subsequently used for further analysis of the system. Ultimately, the concept will help MEW to become more accessible for both research laboratories and industry and allow advancing the technology by leveraging the process monitoring, control and data collection.

Keywords: 3D printing; Additive manufacturing; Automation; Melt electrowriting; Process monitoring.