Fully 3D-Printed Electric Motor Manufactured via Multi-Modal, Multi-Material Extrusion
Name
NVPP_A_2613185_O.pdf
Size
2.25 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
036535c97de30d28e77f131e7b1dfcb4
Author(s)
Cañada, Jorge
Bigelow, Zoey
Velásquez-García, Luis Fernando
Date Issued
January 2, 2026
Journal
Virtual and Physical Prototyping
Publisher
Taylor & Francis
Citation
Cañada, J., Bigelow, Z., & Velásquez-García, L. F. (2026). Fully 3D-Printed electric motor manufactured via multi-modal, multi-material extrusion. Virtual and Physical Prototyping, 21(1).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Material extrusion additive manufacturing can process a wide variety of functional materials including electrically conductive, magnetic, and mechanically compliant polymer composites. While filaments developed for 3D printing often exhibit limited functionality, highly loaded functional composites originally formulated for specialised manufacturing processes can be processed via material extrusion. In this work, a commercial multi-material extrusion 3D printer was modified to process conductive inks, soft and hard magnetic composite pellets, and rigid and compliant polymeric filaments. Using this system, solenoids, hard magnets, and springs were fabricated. These components were combined through straightforward assembly to demonstrate the first fully 3D-printed electric motor — a linear actuator composed of five distinct functional materials: dielectric, electrically conductive, soft magnetic, hard magnetic, and flexible. The solenoids produced up to 2.03 mT magnetic fields, the magnets generated up to 71 mT magnetic fields, and the linear actuator attained a maximum displacement of 318 μm at its resonant frequency (41.6 Hz). This study demonstrates the capability of multi-modal, multi-material extrusion 3D printing to fabricate all critical components of electrical machines, with magnetisation of the hard magnets being the only post-printing step. This milestone advances multi-material, multi-functional 3D printing towards implementing in-situ, customised, low-waste, and low-cost functional hardware.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Microsystems Technology Laboratories
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1080/17452759.2026.2613185
