Company
Portfolio Data
Back to Company SearchAdaptive 3D Technologies LLC
UEI: KTVVKKGRENM7
Number of Employees: 29
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
SBIR/STTR Involvement
Year of first award: 2015
2
Phase I Awards
1
Phase II Awards
50%
Conversion Rate
$298,507
Phase I Dollars
$730,198
Phase II Dollars
$1,028,705
Total Awarded
Awards
Pulse-cured photopolymer resins for just-in-time additive manufacturing of tough, resilient micro-architected elastomers
Amount: $49,932 Topic: AF212-CSO1
In this project we will attempt to accelerate the cure speed of phase-separated 3D printed elastomers (ETR 90) by controlling the energy delivered to the resin through a pulsed-cure dose regimen. Currently, DLP® 3D printers deliver a dose which cures one
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2022
DOD
USAF
Robust, thiol-based 3D printed elastomers for chemically-resistant downhole completions
Amount: $248,575 Topic: 26c
This Phase I SBIR submitted to the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) aims to improve efficiency in unconventional oil and gas recovery through optimization of the downhole completions process and provide supply chain surety to deliver point-of-need solutions to remote production facilities by commercializing novel, thiol-based 3D printable photo-resins that unlock polymers with materials properties and geometries not previously achievable by any other manufacturing means. Conventional completions processes utilize tools which are manufactured from cast and milled rubber and metal parts, assembled in factories, inventoried, and shipped to locations for use. This generates long lead times for replacement parts, high inventory costs and limited ability to respond to unconventional situations (such as packers for needed for sealing high salinity wells, wells with irregular rock faces, and pausing well production with retrievable packer systems). Additive manufacturing of functional parts made from 3D printable elastomers that are mechanically robust and hydrolytically stable can be rapidly deployed on- site to improve up-time and limit costly inventory overhead. Furthermore, additive manufacturing can enable novel geometries, unattainable by conventional molding and subtractive manufacturing, which leads to improved functionality and decreased cost. Adaptive3D’s proprietary technologies including its photo-Polymerization Induced Phase Separation (photoPIPS) mimic aspects of vulcanization (using sulfur to crosslink rubber although our mechanism is fundamentally different) and enable 3D printing of mechanically robust elastomers suitable for the oil and gas market. During Phase I, we seek to demonstrate the feasibility employing our photoPIPS additive manufacturing technology to create tough, tear-resistant, chemically stable elastomers specifically designed to meet the chemical, mechanical and thermal needs of oil and gas applications and test them through ASTM standard methods for down-hole rubbers including: D7999-15(2019) (CNG applications), F146-12(2019)e1 (fluid resistance) and F38-18 (creep). The specific target of this Phase I NETL feasibility study is a 3D printable rubber which has mechanical and chemical properties similar to NBR, a thermoset elastomer used in a range of oil and gas applications. The elastomer resulting from our proposed efforts will be mechanically robust and chemically resistant. To address these challenges, we will employ a two-step process whereby (1) a nascent rubber is mixed with a reactive/labile scaffold and the scaffold is reacted/fixed through the 3D printing process to form a given geometry, then (2) the rubber will be thermally treated, releasing the labile vulcanizing agent which in turn crosslinks the rubber into its final, chemically robust form. This two- step process will be achieved in an industrially scalable 1-part, 1-pot system, enabling maximal versatility and limiting waste as the excess resin is recycled into the next print (providing for a greener process). Small Lot Manufacturing enables reduced tooling costs, reduced time to manufacture and the ability to provide more customized solutions on a per well or even per fracking zone basis, given recent advances in pre-production modeling and simulation. Novel Geometries possible due to additive manufacturing, enable value added components to capture un-tapped markets such as differentiated parts that could sustain high pressures in saline environments and achieve specific thickness to swell ratios. On-Demand Manufacturing reduces inventory and transportation costs and can improve up-time. Needing to helicopter an $1 O-ring onto a platform in the Gulf of Mexico could lead to millions of dollars in downtime- driven lost revenues and our approach is scalable into other emerging alternative energy technologies.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase I
2021
DOE
SBIR Phase II: Ultra-softening polymers from engineered thiol-based resins for additive manufacturing
Amount: $730,198 Topic: NM
The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is making tough, 3D printed parts that can be directly manufactured through additive processes commercially available. Additive manufacturing has potential to revolutionize the way parts are produced by streamlining product design, production, and validation, which allows for low production costs and accelerated lead times. The penetration of additive technology into industrial processes has been greatly slowed by the current inability to 3D print parts of any stiffness with materials properties on par with traditionally manufactured parts. Particularly, 3D printed materials tend to tear or fracture more readily between successive printed layers. At Adaptive 3D Technologies, we have developed resins that produce tough, robust parts that are tougher than many current 3D printed products in the x, y and z planes by achieving covalent crosslinking across printed layers. These materials and processing techniques will help drive additive manufacturing into large volume, yet customizable, market sectors to increase efficiency and productivity across industries. The printed parts resulting from our printable materials will further U.S. manufacturing by lowering production costs, increasing product performance and reshoring advanced manufacturing. This project is focused on understanding interface chemistry and adhesion phenomena in a special class of low-viscosity, thiol-ene resins to produce a range of mechanically tough materials that are 3D printable via stereolithography (SLA). A significant problem with current SLA approaches is that successive printed layers do not adhere sufficiently together, leading to large reductions in toughness as measured by the stress-strain response in soft, viscoelastic and stiff materials. Our Phase II research explores the tradeoffs between molecular architecture, reactivity, resin viscosity, and key printing parameters to develop improved materials to enable tougher printed parts than industry standards along multiple axes of deformation at similar printing speeds and feature sizes well below 100 microns. We have developed a portfolio of 3D printable materials with room temperature Young's moduli near 2 MPa, 20 MPa, 200 MPa or 2 GPa. Soft and viscoelastic materials have strain capacities well above 100% in all print directions, including when measured perpendicular to print layer interfaces. We expect to further our polymers' thermomechanical properties through the proposed Phase II SBIR effort by incorporating proper additives into our systems to control color, shelf life, aesthetics, mechanical properties and compatibility with various jetting techniques.
Tagged as:
SBIR
Phase II
2015
NSF