3D printed tooling for vacuum-assisted resin transfer moulding

Abstract

Three-dimensional printing (3DP) is widely considered to be one of the low-cost additive manufacturing (AM) processes. In this paper, the suitability of 3DP for making tooling for the vacuum-assisted resin transfer moulding (VARTM) process is considered. This combination has potential advantages, since VARTM has significant prototyping benefits if it can be combined with a fast and low cost tooling option. This paper presents a new process chain for the manufacture of closed mould composite parts using the VARTM process. It will be shown that 3DP tooling is significantly less accurate than CNC machined tooling, but there is a cost and time advantage to making tooling with 3DP. The mould life is also limited to typically 15 to 30 parts since significant wear occurs in the manufacturing process. Quantitative data are presented to show the effect of treating the mould surface to improve the surface roughness and to determine the mould life. An aspect often lacking in AM research is cost estimation. Here, the first cost model for rapid tooling for VARTM using 3DP moulds is presented and compared to actual results. It is shown that the model is suitable for design for manufacture analysis.