Rheology and printability: A survey of critical relationships for direct ink write materials design

Direct Ink Write (DIW) is a material extrusion Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that selectively extrudes material in a layer-by-layer fashion to form 3-dimensional parts. DIW can process a breadth of materials due to the inherent flexibility of its feedstock and the simplicity of its process mechanics (e.g., pressure-induced dispensing through a nozzle, no heat transfer, etc.). As a result, the process has attracted great interest from researchers aiming to develop novel materials for AM. The breadth of materials being introduced for DIW speaks to a need for guidelines for materials design and for a set of analytical characterization techniques that can be used to understand how inks will behave in the…