Masked stereolithography (SLA) is a powerful additive manufacturing tool, offering unparalleled resolution and throughput, but most commercial SLA machines are limited to printing low-viscosity resins, which polymerize into brittle materials. The sub-ideal mechanical properties of current commercial resins severely limit the use of SLA for generating end-use parts. High-viscosity resins, including elastomers with high molecular weights and nanoparticle-reinforced resins, offer a broader range of functionality and performance but create new challenges to SLA printing. The main purpose of this research is to broaden the range of printable materials using SLA techniques and to print large structures (with a cross sectional area of around 16” x 16”) while retaining the high feature resolution and printing speed that is inherent in projection and masked SLA printing. This system will be built to enable research on manufacturing porous elastomers with tunable properties based on highly controlled macro- and micro-scale architectures.
Faculty Members
- Richard Crawford
- Carolyn Seepersad
Graduate Student Researchers
- Nicholas Rodriguez
- Hongtao Song
