Carl Robert Deckard, Ph.D, ME (1961 - December 23, 2019) was an American inventor, teacher, and businessman, best known for inventing and developing Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), a method of

3D printing 3D printing or additive manufacturing is the Manufacturing, construction of a three-dimensional object from a computer-aided design, CAD model or a digital 3D modeling, 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is ...

. He died at the age of 58, on 23 December 2019.

Career

Deckard initially came up with the idea for SLS as an undergraduate at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

(UT-Austin). He continued developing the technology as a Masters and PhD student with the help of Dr. Joe Beaman, a professor at UT-Austin. After several years of trial-and-error, Deckard's machine was capable of manufacturing real parts. He licensed the technology from UT-Austin and co-founded Desk Top Manufacturing (DTM) Corp. in 1987. DTM Corp. specialized in rapid prototyping and manufacturing systems for manufacturers and service bureaus. DTM Corp. was acquired by 3D Systems in 2001 at a $45 million valuation. Deckard became an engineering professor at Clemson University after DTM's acquisition. After three and a half years, Deckard returned to Austin to work on the Deckard Engine, a four-stroke engine aimed at replacing emission-emitting two-stroke engines in small, hand-held products. The majority of Deckard's work was in the additive manufacturing industry. In 2012, Deckard co-founded Structured Polymers LLC, a company that develops novel

polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...

s for SLS machines.

Patents

* Selective Laser Sintering with Assisted Powder Handling (U.S. 4,938,816) * Method and Apparatus for Producing Parts by Selective Sintering (U.S. 4,863,538) * Multiple Material Systems for Selective Beam Sintering (U.S. 4,944,817)

References

External links

* Carl Deckard, Inventor of Selective Laser Sintering, has died on December 23, 2019 * Masters of Manufacturing: Carl R. Deckard, PhD
A creative genius with so much more to contribute'
- tributes paid to Selective Laser Sintering inventor Dr Carl Deckard {{DEFAULTSORT:Deckard, Carl R. 1960s births 2019 deaths American businesspeople 21st-century American engineers 20th-century American inventors Clemson University faculty Cockrell School of Engineering alumni