Purpose

This paper aims to present a multi-material additive manufacturing (AM) process with a newly developed curing-on-demand method to fabricate a three-dimensional (3D) object with multiple material compositions.

Design/methodology/approach

Unlike the deposition-on-demand printing method, the proposed curing-on-demand printheads use a digital light processing (DLP) projector to selectively cure a thin layer of liquid photocurable resin and then clean the residual uncured material effectively using a vacuuming and post-curing device. Each printhead can individually fabricate one type of material using digitally controlled mask image patterns. The proposed AM process can accurately deposit multiple materials in each layer by combining multiple curing-on-demand printheads together. Consequently, a three-dimensional object can be fabricated layer-by-layer using the developed curing-on-demand printing method.

Findings

Effective cleaning of uncured resin is realized with reduced coated resin whose height is in the sub-millimeter level and improved vacuum cleaning performance with the uncleaned resin less than 10 µm thick. Also, fast material swapping is achieved using the compact design of multiple printheads.

Originality/value

The proposed multi-material stereolithography (SL) process enables 3D printing components using more viscous materials and can achieve desired manufacturing characteristics, including high feature resolution, fast fabrication speed and low machine cost.

中文翻译：

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使用按需固化打印头的多材料立体光刻

目的

本文旨在介绍一种多材料增材制造 (AM) 工艺，该工艺采用新开发的按需固化方法来制造具有多种材料成分的三维 (3D) 物体。

设计/方法/方法

与按需沉积打印方法不同，所提出的按需固化打印头使用数字光处理 (DLP) 投影仪来选择性地固化液体光固化树脂薄层，然后使用抽真空和后期处理有效地清洁残留的未固化材料。 - 固化装置。每个打印头都可以使用数字控制的掩模图像图案单独制造一种类型的材料。通过将多个按需固化打印头组合在一起，提议的 AM 工艺可以在每一层中准确地沉积多种材料。因此，可以使用开发的按需固化印刷方法逐层制造三维物体。

发现

有效清洁未固化树脂，减少了亚毫米级高度的涂层树脂，提高了未清洁树脂厚度小于 10 µm 的真空清洁性能。此外，使用多个打印头的紧凑设计实现了快速材料交换。

原创性/价值

所提出的多材料立体光刻 (SL) 工艺使 3D 打印组件能够使用更粘稠的材料，并且可以获得所需的制造特性，包括高特征分辨率、快速制造速度和低机器成本。