Fuda Ning

3D printing of an extremely tough hydrogel

Because of their low viscosity and large gelling temperature range, precise 3D printing of agar hydrogels has not been achieved even though the agar double network hydrogels are tough and self-recoverable. In this work, a super tough agar double network hydrogel was precisely printed by adding alginate. The addition of alginate not only increases the ink viscosity and printable period, but also improves its rheological characteristics towards precise processing control. Moreover, the entanglement of the alginate chains with the agar double network hydrogel restricts the agar helical chain bundles from pulling out under stress, which toughens the hydrogel.

Additive Manufacturing of CFRP Composites Using Fused Deposition Modeling: Effects of Carbon Fiber Content and Length

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies have been successfully applied in various applications. Fused deposition modeling (FDM), one of popular AM techniques, is most widely used method for manufacturing of plastic materials. Due to the poor strength properties of pure plastic materials, there is a critical need to improve mechanical properties for FDM-fabricated pure plastic parts. One of the possible methods is adding reinforced materials (such as carbon fibers) into plastic materials to form carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites. The investigation in this paper is going to test if the properties of CFRP composites part will be enhanced compared with pure plastic part made by FDM. There are three major steps in this paper including producing thermoplastic matrix CFRP composites filaments extruded after blending plastic pellets and carbon fiber powder, printing parts in FDM process, and conducting tensile test. Effects of carbon fiber content and length on the mechanical properties (tensile strength, Young’s modulus, toughness, ductility, and yield strength) of specimens are investigated. This investigation will also provide guidance for future investigations of fabricating thermoset matrix CFRP composites by AM techniques.© 2015 ASME