Huang, Wei;
Zhang, Jianhui;
Singh, Vikramjeet;
Xu, Lulu;
Kabi, Prasenjit;
Bele, Eral;
Tiwari, Manish K;
(2023)
Digital light 3D printing of a polymer composite featuring robustness, self-healing, recyclability and tailorable mechanical properties.
Additive Manufacturing
, 61
, Article 103343. 10.1016/j.addma.2022.103343.
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Abstract
Producing lightweight structures with high weight-specific strength and stiffness, self-healing abilities, and recyclability, is highly attractive for engineering applications such as aerospace, biomedical devices, and smart robots. Most self-healing polymer systems used to date for mechanical components lack 3D printability and satisfactory load-bearing capacity. Here, we report a new self-healable polymer composite for Digital Light Processing 3D Printing, by combining two monomers with distinct mechanical characteristics. It shows a desirable and superior combination of properties among 3D printable self-healing polymers, with tensile strength and elastic modulus up to 49 MPa and 810 MPa, respectively. Benefiting from dual dynamic bonds between the linear chains, a healing efficiency of above 80% is achieved after heating at a mild temperature of 60 °C without additional solvents. Printed objects are also endowed with multi-materials assembly and recycling capabilities, allowing robotic components to be easily reassembled or recycled after failure. Mechanical properties and deformation behaviour of printed composites and lattices can be tuned significantly to suit various practical applications by altering formulation. Lattice structures with three different architectures were printed and tested in compression: honeycomb, re-entrant, and chiral. They can regain their structural integrity and stiffness after damage, which is of great value for robotic applications. This study extends the performance space of composites, providing a pathway to design printable architected materials with simultaneous mechanical robustness/healability, efficient recoverability, and recyclability.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Digital light 3D printing of a polymer composite featuring robustness, self-healing, recyclability and tailorable mechanical properties |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.addma.2022.103343 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2022.103343 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | DLP printing, self-healing, mechanically tailorable, materials recycling, lattice structure |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Mechanical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161308 |
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