Monday  |  Salon 10  |  04:30 PM–04:50 PM

#15664, 3D Printing of Continuous Fiber-reinforced Thermoset Composites

3D printing allows for the moldless fabrication of continuous fiber-reinforced composites with high design freedom and low manufacturing cost per part, which makes it ideal for rapid prototyping and composite product development. It allows the user to easily design composites with tailored fiber distribution and selective reinforcements Various functions can be readily incorporated by printing with functional fibers. However, there is no robust design of printer for continuous-fiber reinforced thermoset composites, especially for the thermally-curable composites that are widely used in the industry. In this work, we developed a versatile 3D printing method for continuous-fiber thermoset composites based on direct ink writing. It leverages the shear stress imposed on the fiber to enable the ready extrusion of composite filaments and can be applied to print most thermally-curable and photo-curable resins and commercially-available fibers. The fiber content of composites and the printing speed can be precisely controlled with excellent reliability and repeatability. The printed thermally-curable composites show excellent mechanical strength due to the covalently bonding among filaments. When applying the printing method to the photo-curable resin, it enables the free-standing printing of composite structures without supporting materials. Overall, the developed printing method allows the composite parts to be designed quickly to meet unique specifications, as well as provides new functions in 4D printing, biomedical printing, and the printing of functional devices.

Kai Yu   University of Colorado Denver