This paper proposes a new 3D printing technique that can fabricate an object in which binary information can be recorded as rewritable. A fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer that has two nozzles was used. An object was fabricated by one nozzle using polylactic acid (PLA) resin, and during the fabrication, domains for information recording were formed inside the object by the other nozzle using the same PLA resin as the object but mixed with iron powder. Since the domains contain iron as magnetic material, information can be recorded by magnetizing them by applying a magnetic field from outside the object. Binary information is expressed by the direction of magnetization of each domain. Experimental results demonstrate the feasibility of this technique. Our technique can be applied in the future to add security and tracking information in the form of magnetic information. This would be valuable in custom manufacturing.
Piyarat Silapasuphakornwong, Hideyuki Torii, Masahiro Suzuki, Kazutake Uehira, "3D Printing Technique That Can Record Information Inside An Object As Rewritable" in Proc. IS&T Printing for Fabrication: Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies (NIP35), 2019, pp 158 - 161, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2019.35.158