The effect of silica composite properties on DLP-stereolithography based 3D printing

Abstract

Recently, various composite materials for additive manufacturing are interested to expand the application field of 3D printing. 3D printing technique was mainly developed using polymer, and ceramic materials for 3D printing are still in the early stage of research due to the requirement of high solid content and post treatment process. In this study, silica particles with various diameters were surface treated with silane coupling agent, and synthesized as silica composite with photopolymer to apply DLP 3D printing process. DLP is an additive manufacturing technology, which has high accuracy and applicability of various composite materials. The rheological behavior of silica composite was analyzed with various solid contents. After DLP 3D printing was performed using silica composites, the printing accuracy of the 3D printed specimen was less than about 3 % to compare with digital data and he bending strength was 34.3 MPa at the solid content of 80 wt%.