Susanne Klein holds a Diploma in Physics and a PhD in Medical Physics from the University of Saarland. Since 1995 she has worked and lived in the UK, first as a Royal Society Research  Assistant at the University of Bristol and then as a member of HP Labs. She has worked on colloidal liquid crystals, colloids in liquid crystals and new materials for 3D printing and is now working on optical cryptography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

‘The colour of glass’

3D-printing, along with other additive manufacturing (AM) and rapid prototyping (RP) techniques, involves building up structures in a layer-by-layer fashion based upon a computer design file.  Such techniques are well-suited to the production of one-off, complex structures that would often be difficult to produce using traditional manufacturing methods.  There has been rapid growth and interest in this field during recent years, and a range of techniques are now available which make use of many common materials such as plastic, metal, wood and ceramic. However, relatively little has been done to develop AM using glass.

Since glass was first made, thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia, it has been appreciated because of its vibrant colours. To allow a successful design and print of any glass object, these colours have to be captured and classified in such a way that they can be incorporated in the CAD design of the object and lead to the desired result in the print. The colours of architectural glass are often classified by RAL charts  or by BS4800:2100 colour codes. Both colour classification systems have been developed for paints and coatings, but are a good first approximation. What they cannot capture is, for example, that some glasses display different colours in reflection and transmission and/or the colour change occurring in glass when it is reheated. In 3D printed glass, gas inclusions are another source of colour changes. Scattering at the air/ gas interface leads to the addition of white to the underlying glass colour.

Using the CIE chromaticity coordinates, glass samples are characterized before and after processing. We used two different measurement methods to determine colour coordinates as a function of sample thickness and frit size to check how robust the results were as a function of the measurement method.

 

Details

After Suzannes presentation and any questions we will open the floor up for a discussion,  if anyone feels like they would like to bring along any ppt’s or links that they want to share for discussion then please bring it along on a USB or mail the team with info and we can share this during the discussion period.  Don’t forget – you don’t have to work in the industry or be a geek, this is a group for anyone with an interest in the subject!

Please sign up on our meetup page here MEETUP

Do come along for pre-presentation mingling as we will be there from 6.30pm. As always, we welcome men to our group, but to keep our audience predominantly female, we ask that all men are accompanied by a woman (just add a +1 on the meetup).

The food and hosting is kindly sponsored by regular GGD supporters HP, there is free parking and feel free to mail or comment on the meetup if you need a lift.

Directions to HP Lab: http://www.hpl.hp.com/downloads/HP_Labs_Bristol.pdf