Purpose

PolyJet technology allows printing complex multi-material composite configurations using Voxel digital designs' capability, thus allowing rapid prototyping of 3D printed structural parts. This paper aims to investigate the processing and mechanical characteristics of composite material configurations formed from soft and hard materials with different distributions and sizes via voxel digital print design.

Design/methodology/approach

Voxels are extruded representations of pixels and represent different material information similar to each pixel representing colors in digital images. Each geometric region of a digitally designed part represented by a voxel can be printed with a different material. Multi-material composite part configurations were formed and rapidly prototyped using a PolyJet printer Stratasys J750. A design of experiments composite part configuration of a soft material (Tango Plus) within a hard material matrix (Vero Black) was studied. Composite structures with different hard and soft material distributions, but at the same volume fractions of hard and soft materials, were rapidly prototyped via PolyJet printing through developed Voxel digital printing designs. The tensile behavior of these formed composite material configurations was studied.

Findings

Processing and mechanical behavior characteristics depend on materials in different regions and their distributions. Tensile characterization obtained the fracture energy, tensile strength, modulus and failure strength of different hard-soft composite systems. Mechanical properties and behavior of all different composite material systems are compared.

Practical implications

Tensile characteristics correlate to digital voxel designs that play a critical role in additive manufacturing, in addition to the formed material composition and distributions.

Originality/value

Results clearly indicate that multi-material composite systems with various tensile mechanical properties could be created using voxel printing by engineering the design of material distributions, and sizes. The important parameters such as inclusion size and distribution can easily be controlled within all slices via voxel digital designs in PolyJet printing. Therefore, engineers and designers can manipulate entire morphology and material at each voxel level, and different prototype morphologies can be created with the same voxel digital design. In addition, difficulties from AM process with voxel printing for such material designs is addressed, and effective digital solutions were used for successful prototypes. Some of these difficulties are extra support material or printing the part with different dimension than it designed to achieve the final part dimension fidelity. Present work addressed and resolved such issued and provided cyber based software solutions using CAD and voxel discretization. All these increase broad adaptability of PolyJet AM in industry for prototyping and end-use.

中文翻译：

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多元喷射增材制造中通过体素数字设计形成的刚性和柔性材料复合系统的加工和机械性能

目的

PolyJet技术允许使用Voxel数字设计的功能来打印复杂的多材料合成配置，从而实现3D打印结构零件的快速原型制作。本文旨在通过体素数字印刷设计研究由具有不同分布和尺寸的软硬材料构成的复合材料构型的加工和机械特性。

设计/方法/方法

体素是像素的挤压表示，并且代表与每个代表数字图像中颜色的像素相似的不同材质信息。由体素表示的数字设计零件的每个几何区域都可以用不同的材料进行印刷。使用PolyJet打印机Stratasys J750形成了多种材料的复合零件配置并迅速进行了原型制作。研究了在硬质材料基体（Vero Black）中的软质材料（Tango Plus）的复合材料零件实验配置的设计。通过开发的Voxel数字印刷设计，通过PolyJet印刷技术快速制作出具有不同硬，软材料分布，但硬，软材料体积分数相同的复合结构的原型。研究了这些成型的复合材料构型的拉伸性能。

发现

加工和机械行为特征取决于不同区域中的材料及其分布。拉伸表征获得了不同硬-软复合体系的断裂能，抗张强度，模量和破坏强度。比较了所有不同复合材料系统的机械性能和行为。

实际影响

拉伸特性与数字体素设计相关，数字体素设计除了形成的材料成分和分布外，在增材制造中也起着至关重要的作用。

创意/价值

结果清楚地表明，可以通过体素设计材料分布和尺寸的设计，使用体素印刷来创建具有多种拉伸机械性能的多材料复合系统。可以通过PolyJet印刷中的体素数字设计在所有切片中轻松控制重要的参数，例如夹杂物的大小和分布。因此，工程师和设计师可以在每个体素级别上操纵整个形态和材料，并且可以使用相同的体素数字设计来创建不同的原型形态。此外，解决了此类材料设计的体素印刷AM工艺带来的困难，有效的数字解决方案被用于成功的原型。这些困难中的一些是额外的支撑材料或以与设计成最终零件尺寸保真度不同的尺寸印刷零件。当前的工作使用CAD和体素离散化解决并解决了此类已发布和提供的基于网络的软件解决方案。所有这些都增加了PolyJet AM在工业界对原型和最终用途的广泛适应性。