Methods of producing an additive manufactured part with a smooth surface finish and customized properties include creating a compensated design that serves as a print recipe for an additive manufacturing process for a part, where the creating comprises modifying a desired design with a geometric offset correction to compensate for a first portion of an uncured surface finish material to be retained on the part. A spinning device is provided that has a platform. The part is formed with the additive manufacturing process and secured to the platform, where the part is at least partially wetted with the uncured surface finish material. The platform is rotated, where a second portion of the uncured surface finish material is removed due to forces imparted by the rotating. The uncured surface finish material is chosen to customize a property of the part.

An additive manufacturing system is disclosed that comprises two or more lasers for precisely heating a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic feedstock and a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic workpiece in preparation for depositing and tamping the feedstock onto the workpiece. The system employs feedforward, a variety of sensors, and feedback to ensure that the feedstock and workpiece are properly heated.

An additive manufacturing system is disclosed that comprises two or more lasers for precisely heating a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic feedstock and a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic workpiece in preparation for depositing and tamping the feedstock onto the workpiece. The system employs feedforward, a variety of sensors, and feedback to ensure that the feedstock and workpiece are properly heated.

An additive manufacturing system is disclosed that comprises two or more lasers for precisely heating a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic feedstock and a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic workpiece in preparation for depositing and tamping the feedstock onto the workpiece. The system employs feedforward, a variety of sensors, and feedback to ensure that the feedstock and workpiece are properly heated.

An additive manufacturing system is disclosed that comprises two or more lasers for precisely heating a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic feedstock and a fiber-reinforced thermoplastic workpiece in preparation for depositing and tamping the feedstock onto the workpiece. The system employs feedforward, a variety of sensors, and feedback to ensure that the feedstock and workpiece are properly heated.

A pair of physically-integrated two-stage heaters are disclosed for precisely heating a thermoplastic filament and a thermoplastic workpiece in preparation for depositing the filament onto the workpiece. The design in physically compact and capable of heating the filament and workpiece to within a very narrow temperature range. This is accomplished with four independently-generated light beams, of different frequencies, that are spatially combined and transmitted, via optical fiber or free-space optics, to the location where they are needed and where they are unpacked (i.e., spatially separated) and shone onto their respective targets.

Polymer composites and methods of making wherein the polymer composites include a continuous matrix phase and a reinforcing phase, with varying properties (material and/or physical).

The invention relates to a method of manufacturing a three dimensional structure having an internal space, the method comprising the following steps: (a) arranging a preform of fibre reinforced material in a first configuration in which the preform is supported by a support structure; (b) selectively curing the preform when laid out on the support structure to produce an intermediate preform, the intermediate preform comprising at least two selectively cured portions interconnected by at least one non-selectively cured portion; and (c) moving the two selectively cured portions with respect to one another to form the three dimensional composite structure in which the two portions at least partially surround the internal space of the structure. A preform of fibre reinforced material for use in a method of manufacturing a three dimensional structure having an internal space also forms part of the invention. The invention also relates to a device and intermediate preforms for the manufacture of a fibre-reinforced composite structure.

The present disclosure is drawn to radiation embossable coated print media. In one example, a radiation embossable coated print medium can include a print substrate, an expanding coating layer on the print substrate, and an ink receiving layer on the expanding coating layer. The expanding coating layer can include a flexible polymer binder and temperature responsive thermoplastic beads in the flexible polymeric binder. The temperature responsive thermoplastic beads can include a propellant encapsulated in a thermoplastic polymer shell.

Methods for machining a composite material substrate are discloses comprising integrating a predetermined pattern area having a disbond material for the purpose of creating a disbond region into the composite material substrate at a predetermined thickness, detecting the disbond region and forming a plurality of recesses in the composite material substrate by removing a machined plug from the composite material substrate to form recesses positioned at locations corresponding to the predetermined pattern area, and composite components comprising the recesses machined according to such methods.