SD4D
Sustainable Design of 4D Printed Active Systems
The aim of this project is to digitally design and 3D print lightweight, reconfigurable and active structures and robots that use less material, require no assembly, use fewer different materials to ease recyclability, adapt to the environment and task thus prolonging lifespan and exhibit increased durability so as to make them industrially relevant.
Using Additive Manufacturing (AM), we are currently able to design the geometry of parts to achieve customized performance, e.g. lightweight and personal customization. Through new multi-material AM processes we are also able to locally tune the material composition and "program" the material to create parts that have thus far unexploited functionalities, e.g. reconfiguration and actuation. This is the next generation of 3D printing and has been termed “4D printing”, i.e. 3D printed structures that change their shape after printing in response to the environment, as described in this scientific article.
Scope of Research Activities
Key Technical Problems to Solve
Demonstrators
Linked Scientific Publications
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
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Leading Principal Investigator
Project Consortium
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