Rethinking the Product Design Process of 3D-Printed Objects with Recycled Materials

About

The team led by Professors Patrick Baudisch (HPI) and Stefanie Mueller (MIT) investigates how to help designers explore performance and sustainability metrics for 3D printed products in an interactive manner. As designers increase their design’s sustainability, they can observe in real-time how material assignments and geometry changes are made to the product to approximate the required functional performance. In addition to the use of virgin vs. recycled material, the team will consider sustainable material usage (e.g., choosing more sustainable filaments with similar functional performance), total material usage (both of the design and additional support material), and 3D printer energy usage (e.g., print time). The team recently acquired a high-resolution multi-material 3D printer, which will allow them to explore selective material assignment for sustainable 3D printing on a much more fine-grained level than before further increasing the impact of their work.