Imperial College London
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DrDavidBoyle

Faculty of Engineering, Dyson School of Design Engineering

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

david.boyle Website

 
 
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Location

 

1M04ARoyal College of ScienceSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Hong:2022:10.1007/s42979-022-01174-1,
author = {Hong, F and Tendera, L and Myant, C and Boyle, D},
doi = {10.1007/s42979-022-01174-1},
journal = {SN Computer Science},
title = {Vacuum-Formed 3D Printed Electronics: Fabrication of Thin, Rigid and Free-Form Interactive Surfaces},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42979-022-01174-1},
volume = {3},
year = {2022}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Vacuum-forming is a common manufacturing technique for constructing thin plastic shell products by pressing heated plastic sheets onto a mold using atmospheric pressure. Vacuum-forming is ubiquitous in packaging and casing products in the industry, spanning fast moving consumer goods to connected devices. Integrating advanced functionality, which may include sensing, computation and communication, within thin structures is desirable for various next-generation interactive devices. Hybrid additive manufacturing techniques like thermoforming are becoming popular for prototyping freeform surfaces owing to their design flexibility, speed and cost-effectiveness. This paper presents a new hybrid method for constructing thin, rigid and free-form interconnected surfaces via fused deposition modelling (FDM) 3D printing and vacuum-forming that builds on recent advances in thermoforming circuits. 3D printing the sheet material allows for the embedding of conductive traces within thin layers of the substrate, which can be vacuum-formed but remain conductive and insulated. This is an unexplored fabrication technique within the context of designing and manufacturing connected things. In addition to explaining the method, this paper characterizes the behavior of vacuum-formed 3D printed sheets, analyses the electrical performance of printed traces after vacuum-forming, and showcases a range of sample artefacts constructed using the technique. In addition, the paper describes a new design interface for designing conformal interconnects that allows designers to draw conductive patterns in 3D and export pre-distorted sheet models ready to be printed.
AU  - Hong,F
AU  - Tendera,L
AU  - Myant,C
AU  - Boyle,D
DO  - 10.1007/s42979-022-01174-1
PY  - 2022///
SN  - 2662-995X
TI  - Vacuum-Formed 3D Printed Electronics: Fabrication of Thin, Rigid and Free-Form Interactive Surfaces
T2  - SN Computer Science
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s42979-022-01174-1
VL  - 3
ER  -
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