3D printing on warp-knitted fabrics

While 3D printing was in former times mostly used for rapid prototyping, nowadays it is also used for rapid manufacturing. To overcome the problems of relatively low production speed and in several cases insufficient mechanical properties of 3D printed objects, 3D printing can be combined with larger-scale production processes, e.g. by directly printing on textile fabrics. To combine the advantages of both materials, e.g. tensile strength of a woven fabric with stiffness of an imprinted layer, the adhesion between both partners under mechanical load has to be investigated. Here, we use tensile tests to examine maximum forces, elongation at break, wearing out of the composites and the adhesion under maximized or repeated tensile stress to examine the applicability of such composites for sports shoes etc.