The Governors of the University of Alberta
3D printing of metal and biomaterials using freeze casting in reduced gravity — The collapsing of soft material is a challenging issue for the earth's gravity additive manufacturing process of soft tissues or material (i.e. building a component in layers by depositing material). The main objective of this project is to develop a platform for a reduced gravity environment that can assess a considered additive manufacturing process (metal/biomaterials) for an optimum outcome with minimal defects while simultaneously performing instant measurements of surface energy and surface tension of a solid substrate and a liquid, respectively. 

The knowledge of the change in the volume and density of the solidified material with the technology to quantify surface forces is a scientific innovation for numerous applications pertinent to future space missions. The same platform can be easily modified to test the ability of the in-house developed liquid material for 3D printing. The successful implementation of this project will comment on the feasibility to use space travel as a