Tomographic and mechanical study of 3D printed porous polymer structure under compression

Abstract

This study investigates the influence of open porosity rate and trabeculae diameter on the compressive behavior of structure printed by DLP technology. Three types of structures have been studied : two periodic structures (Cubic and Octet) and one aperiodic structure (Voronoi-based). Each of these structures are printed with a porosity of 40, 60 and 80 % and also with two different trabeculae diameters: 0.45 mm and 0.66 mm. We investigated porosity by micro-tomograpy with ImageJ for the data treatment. We determined the curing time by making a compressive test for different lengths of UV cure. The first results of the study show that Cubic structure has better Young’s Modulus and also better mechanical stress than Octet and Voronoi-based structures.

Keywords

• porous structure
• DLP technology
• compression test
• tomography
• porosity
• trabeculae