7th January 2021 11:08 am 7th January 2021 12:50 pm Engineers at the University of Maryland (UMD) have created a morphing nozzle that provides a new way of controlling fibre alignment during 3D printing. The morphing nozzle in action, 3D printing fiber-filled composite materials with on-demand control of fiber alignment for 4D printing (Image: UMD) Fibre-filled composites are made up of short fibres that can enhance properties such as part strength or electrical conductivity. The challenge is that these properties are based on the orientations of the short fibres, which has been difficult to control during the 3D printing process. “When 3D printing with the morphing nozzle, the power lies on their side actuators, which can be inflated like a balloon to change the shape of the nozzle, and in turn, the orientations of the fibres,” said Ryan Sochol, an assistant professor in mechanical engineering and director of the Bioinspired Advanced Manufacturing (BAM) Laboratory at UMD’s A. James Clark School of Engineering. The team’s findings have been published in