An evaluation of components manufactured from a range of materials, fabricated using PolyJet technology

Abstract

With advances in additive manufacturing, particularly in the area of three dimensional (3D) printing, it is becoming possible to generate small quantities of functional components. As with all manufacturing technologies, the ability to reproducibly generate parts with defined dimensional accuracy and surface finish is of key importance. This work characterises the ability of one such technology, PolyJet 3D printing, to produce such parts. In order to characterise the output from the manufacturing technique, a test part was designed and manufactured in three alternative materials representative of alternative grades across a commercial range. The designed test part consisted of positive and negative feature types printed both in the direction of, and normal to, the print head traverse direction. The test parts were characterised in terms of dimensional accuracy in three dimensions and also in terms of surface finish. Differences in dimensional accuracy and surface profile were observed depending on the orientation of the feature relative to the print head travel direction