Three-Dimensional Printing by Vat Photopolymerization on Textile Fabrics: Method and Mechanical Properties of the Textile/Polymer Composites

Composites of textile fabrics and 3D-printed layers have been investigated thoroughly during the last decade. Usually, material extrusion such as the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique is used to build such composites, revealing challenges in preparing form-locking connections between both materials due to the highly viscous polymer melt, which can hardly be pressed into textile fabrics. Resins used for 3D printing by vat photopolymerization, i.e., for stereolithography (SLA), are less viscous and can thus penetrate deeper into textile fabrics; however, fixing a textile on the printing bed that is fully dipped into the resin is more complicated. Here, we present one possible solution to easily fix textile fabrics for SLA printing with consumer printers according to the digital light processing (DLP) sub-method. Also, we show the results of a study of the mechanical properties of the resulting textile/polymer composites, as revealed by three-point bending tests.