Epoxy infiltrated 3D printed ceramics for composite tooling applications

Abstract The use of additive manufacturing (AM) provides an opportunity to fabricate composite tooling molds in a rapidly and cost effectively manner. This work has shown the use of a polymer based infiltrated ceramics produced via binder jetting for producing composite tooling molds. Here, molds based on silica sand as well as zircon sand have been printed on a S-Max 3D printer unit and subsequently impregnated with an epoxy system for yielding functional molds in the range of autoclave temperatures around 150–177 °C. The mechanical properties of the infiltrated 3D printed materials have been investigated and it was observed that the polymer-infiltrated systems resulted in a compressive and flexural strength one order of magnitude higher than the non-infiltrated printed ceramic material. A thermal analysis was also performed on both the infiltrated and non-infiltrated printed samples, and it was recorded that the incorporation of the polymer resulted in a larger coefficient of thermal expansion on the infiltrated systems. Here, a carbon fiber reinforced composite was manufactured with the infiltrated composite tooling molds printed in the S-Max unit, and it was observed that the assembled molds are capable of producing a successful composite material. The present work has demonstrated that a binder jetting process, is a feasible technology for producing thermostable low cost composite tooling molds.