Additive manufacturing is a rapidly growing technical area within which a wide variety of methods have been developed. These new processes provide a higher degree of geometrical freedom when building specific objects for small series production or for custom-made use. Nowadays different types of materials are processed in additive manufacturing, like thermoplastic polymers (PLA, ABS, PA 12), metals or ceramics. However crosslinkable elastomeric materials like silicones have hardly been considered although they are widely used in several industries.<br/>This study focuses on 3D printing of silicone formulations, in a view to creating new structures of light densities but still strong mechanical properties. Material extrusion (or fused deposition modelling, FDM) was used here as an additive manufacturing process in which material is selectively dispensed through a nozzle. This method requires a number of modifications and improvements when printing silica-filled silicone formulations, e.g. rheology, curing time and final crosslink densities. We finally came up with an array of formulations that both fit perfectly with additive manufacturing and generate finished product with as excellent mechanical properties as molded parts. This talk addresses this issue by first delivering some information on the formulation improvement, the building of model specimens and their final properties.

Silicone formulations vs final mechanical properties of model specimens prepared by additive manufacturing

256th National Meeting (2018)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.