The advantages of dual-cure interpenetrating polymer networks (IPNs) regarding their utility in additive manufacturing (AM) techniques have been well established. These advantages include mitigation of cure induced shrinkage, reduced sensitivity toward oxygen inhibition, and tunable viscoelastic properties. While IPNs offer unique advantages for AM, the materials studied have mainly focused on acrylates blended with epoxides or similar systems. This research combines thermal, and UV initiated polymerization techniques to prepare dual-cure IPNs by incorporation of benzoxazine (BOX) monomers with multi-functional acrylate monomers. Multi-functional BOX monomers offer distinct advantages for AM due to their high UV resistance, near-zero shrinkage during polymerization, and molecular design flexibility. The UV cure kinetics and viscosity of this dual-cure formulation is studied as a function of BOX monomer loading level. Formulations studied are then used to prepare layered IPNs via stereolithography 3-D printing. The thermomechanical properties of these layered networks are studied using dynamic mechanical analysis. This is done as a function of BOX monomer loading level and thermal post-processing time and temperature.

Layered polymer networks with dual-cure mechanisms based on multi-functional benzoxazines

255th National Meeting (2018)

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