Material Development for Additive Manufacturing: Compressive Loading Behavior of SLA 3D-Printed Thermosets with Nanosilica Powders

Abstract

3D printing is now being used in many different applications. This adoption of 3D printing in these applications is accelerated by the development of new materials such as high performance polymers and nanocomposites. In this study, a commercially-available stereolithographic (SLA) resin has been reinforced with 0%, 0.1%, 0.3% and 0.5% nanosilica powder. The resulting mixture has been 3D-printed using a stereolithography 3d printer. The 3D-printed composites have been post-cured in a UV chamber and the mechanical properties have been assessed under compressive loading using a universal testing machine (ASTM-D695). The results show that adding nanosilica powder to the resin would increase the compressive strength of the resin, and that the highest compressive strength could be observed when 0.1% nanosilica poweder was added to the resin.