Patent ID: 11884019
Assignee: RAYTHEON COMPANY
Field: Other special machines (Mechanical engineering)
Classification: CPC B  G | IPC B  G

Claim 6:
7. A method of encoding a physical object during additive manufacturing of the object, the method comprising:
providing a computer model of the object that includes instructions to additively manufacture at least a portion of the object, and includes instructions to encode at least a portion of the object with information;
additively manufacturing the object according to the model, wherein the object is at least partially formed by a plurality of voxels of material disposed at different spatial locations of the object along three-dimensions, each of the voxels having magnetic domains that are inducible with permanent magnetism via exposure to an external magnetic field; and
encoding the object with the information according to the model;
wherein the encoding is performed during the additive manufacturing; and
wherein the encoding includes exposing at least some of the voxels at the different spatial locations of the object to the external magnetic field, the external magnetic field having a magnetic vector direction and a magnetic vector intensity that induces permanent magnetism into the magnetic domains of the respectively exposed voxels, such that the magnetic domains configure and retain their magnetic vector orientation in the same direction as the magnetic vector direction of the external magnetic field and/or configure and retain their magnetic vector intensity proportional to the magnetic vector intensity of the external magnetic field, and
wherein, during the encoding, the magnetic vector direction and/or magnetic vector intensity of the external magnetic field is varied at the different spatial locations of the object to form a spatial array of different magnetic characteristics in the object that represents the encoded;
wherein the object is made of a non-metallic base material having metallic particles contained therein;
wherein each voxel of the non-metallic base material exposed to the external magnetic field contains at least one metallic particle, each metallic particle having one or more of the magnetic domains that are induced with permanent magnetism via exposure to the external magnetic field; and
wherein the non-metallic base material has a glass transition temperature; and
wherein encoding during the additive manufacturing includes heating the voxels of material above the glass transition temperature to a flowable state, and then exposing the metallic particles in the respectively heated voxels to the external magnetic field, with cooling below the glass transition temperature causing the magnetic domains of the metallic particles to remain permanently configured with a magnetic vector orientation in the same direction as the external magnetic field and/or with a magnetic vector intensity proportional to the intensity of the external magnetic field.