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Technique to 3D Print Flexible Piezoelectric Materials Could Enable Intelligent Infrastructure

Piezoelectric materials convert strain and stress into electric charges; conventional piezoelectrics come in only a few defined shapes and are made of brittle crystal and ceramic. Now, mechanical engineers from Virginia Tech  have developed a technique to 3D print flexible piezoelectric materials that can be custom-designed to convert stress, impact, and movement from any direction into electrical energy. The materials can be printed in many shapes and sizes and can also be activated, to provide smart materials for applications like tactile sensing, energy harvesting, and vibration monitoring. The researchers see applications in intelligent infrastructure, where a structure is made with piezoelectric material to sense impacts and vibrations, and have printed a small smart bridge to demonstrate its applicability.

Topics:
3D Printing & Additive Manufacturing Data Acquisition Electronics & Computers Energy Manufacturing & Prototyping Materials Power Sensors

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    Transcript

    00:00:06 We came up with a 3D printing approach to print piezoelectric materials into any arbitrary forms, shapes, and even internal micro-architectures. The beauty with 3d printing is you can actually create these materials like Lego blocks; you pile them up to create an intelligent infrastructure that is not only impact-absorbing, stiff and strong, but also they can self-sense impact and mechanical stress coming from any direction, anywhere, without attaching any sensors. This will change the way we design and use sensors and actuators. You can print these smart materials into any custom shapes. For example your wearables – shoe insoles, rings, or any materials that have tailorable shapes.

    00:01:04 These materials are smart and they can sense stress, monitor impact in any direction. We envision this will be a path toward a new way of manufacturing sensors and actuators – moving from the cleanroom to desktop 3D printers. In the future we can custom print, designed smart sensors and actuators inside of any materials.