@article{Zhang2022, 
author = {Wenqiang Zhang and Haitao Ye and Xiaobin Feng and Wenzhao Zhou and Ke Cao and Maoyuan Li and Sufeng Fan and Yang Lu},
title = {Tailoring mechanical properties of PμSL 3D-printed structures via size effect},
year = {2022},
journal = {International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing},
volume = {4},
number = {4},
pages = {045201},
keywords = {3D printing, mechanical properties, size effect, projection micro-stereolithography (PμSL), microfiber, microlattice metamaterial},
url = {https://www.sciopen.com/article/10.1088/2631-7990/ac93c2},
doi = {10.1088/2631-7990/ac93c2},
abstract = {Projection micro stereolithography (PμSL) has emerged as a powerful three-dimensional (3D) printing technique for manufacturing polymer structures with micron-scale high resolution at high printing speed, which enables the production of customized 3D microlattices with feature sizes down to several microns. However, the mechanical properties of as-printed polymers were not systemically studied at the relevant length scales, especially when the feature sizes step into micron/sub-micron level, limiting its reliable performance prediction in micro/nanolattice and other metamaterial applications. In this work, we demonstrate that PμSL-printed microfibers could become stronger and significantly more ductile with reduced size ranging from 20 μm to 60 μm, showing an obvious size-dependent mechanical behavior, in which the size decreases to 20 μm with a fracture strain up to ~100% and fracture strength up to ~100 MPa. Such size effect enables the tailoring of the material strength and stiffness of PμSL-printed microlattices over a broad range, allowing to fabricate the microlattice metamaterials with desired/tunable mechanical properties for various structural and functional applications.}
}