Tailored particles for powder-based additive manufacturing

1. A plurality of powder particles configured to be joined in an additive manufacturing process to form a part, each one of said plurality of powder particles comprising:

a determined three dimensional, non-spherical shape;

the plurality of powder particles further being of dimensions enabling fitting individual ones of the plurality of particles in abutting relationship with one another; and

at least a subplurality of the plurality of powder particles each further including a functionalized surface feature to enhance and promote at least one of attraction and clustering of, or separation of, the subplurality of the plurality of powder particles.

2. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein the functionalized surface feature comprises magnetic dipoles located on each one of the subplurality of powder particles.

3. The plurality of powder particles of claim 2 , wherein all of the magnetic dipoles have the same polarity, to facilitate separation of the subplurality of powder particles.

4. The plurality of powder particles of claim 2 , wherein the magnetic dipoles have different polarities to enhance clustering of the subplurality of powder particles.

5. The plurality of powder particles of claim 2 , wherein at least some of the subplurality of the plurality of powder particles include a pair of the magnetic dipoles on different surface portions thereof.

6. The plurality of powder particles of claim 5 , wherein each said pair of the magnetic dipoles includes a dipole of a first polarity, and a dipole of a second polarity opposite the first polarity.

7. The plurality of powder particles of claim 2 , wherein each one of the subplurality of the plurality of powder particles has pits formed on surface portions thereof, and the magnetic dipoles are disposed in the pits.

8. The plurality of powder particles of claim 2 , wherein each one of the subplurality of the plurality of powder particles has pores forming a nanoscale porosity, and a magnetic material precursor is deposited in the pores to form the magnetic dipoles.

9. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the plurality of powder particles:

have a square shape;

have a rectangular shape;

have a pyramidal shape;

have an octahedral shape; or

have a cuboctahedral shape.

10. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of powder particles all have the same shape.

11. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of powder particles all have the same dimensions.

12. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein the functionalized surface feature comprises a coating.

13. The plurality of powder particles of claim 12 , wherein the coating comprises a heat setting adhesive.

14. The plurality of powder particles of claim 13 , wherein the heat setting adhesive is susceptible to chemical etching.

15. The plurality of powder particles of claim 12 , wherein the coating comprises a solder.

16. The plurality of powder particles of claim 12 , wherein the coating comprises different solders applied to different ones of the subplurality of the plurality of powder particles, the different solders configured to melt at different temperatures.

17. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein the functionalized surface feature comprises a chemical composition that generates a brittle phase when subjected to a hydrostatic pressure, allowing for ones of the plurality of powder particles that have agglomerated together in a previous manufacturing phase to be readily broken apart in a subsequent operation.

18. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the plurality of powder particles have a size on a scale of tens of hundreds of microns.

19. The plurality of powder particles of claim 1 , wherein at least some of the plurality of powder particles are at least one of identical in three dimensional shape or at least partially complementary in three dimensional shape to each other.