Mechanical property modeling of photosensitive liquid resin in stereolithography additive manufacturing: Bridging degree of cure with tensile strength and hardness

Owing to the unique layer-wise production method, additive manufacturing technologies have been widely adopted in rapid prototyping and tooling areas, which often require superior mechanical properties such as tensile strength and hardness. In current literature, most mechanical property studies focusing on additive manufactured materials mainly adopt experimental or simulation-based approaches, and therefore cannot be directly used to accurately estimate and predict the achieved mechanical properties. In addition, information regarding the mechanical properties of photosensitive liquid resin used in the Stereolithography additive manufacturing process is limited. Hence, in this paper, mathematical models are established to quantify the tensile strength and hardness of Stereolithography fabricated materials by estimating the solidification levels of both green parts and Ultraviolet post-cured parts. The established degree of cure model is shown to have an average prediction accuracy of around 94%. In addition, the mechanical property models have an average accuracy of 88% and 90% for tensile strength prediction, and 98% and 95% for hardness prediction of green parts and post-cured parts, respectively. It is also observed that the Ultraviolet post-curing process has the capability of significantly enhancing the studied mechanical properties.