粉末焼結積層造形による透明部品の作製: 屈折率調整されたエポキシ樹脂の含浸によるプラスチック粉末焼結積層造形品の透明化

摘要

A novel process that can fabricate transparent parts was developed for the purpose of improving mechanical and thermal performances of functional and transparent prototypes which is provided through an additive manufacturing technology. The process starts with plastic laser sintering process, which is widely applied to fabrication of functional prototype or rapid manufacturing, and following infiltration of the sinter, which is opaque after the first process, with thermosetting plastic of which refractive index after cure is tuned to have the same value as that of the sintered powder clearly eliminates opacity from the sinter. Experiments using styrene-methacrylate copolymer as powder material and thermosetting epoxy resin were carried out, and the minimum haze of 20% (at 5mm in thickness) was obtained. In terms of mechanical strength, impact strength (unnotched Izod) reached 3.5kJ/m~2 meeting standard of that for transparent grade stereolithography parts. In this paper, requirements both in laser sintering and infiltration, and problems to be solved to improve the mechanical strength are also discussed.%光造形法を始めとする積層造形法は，工具の干渉を考慮するrnことなく複雑な形状を加工できることや，チャッキングが困難rnな形状を治具を作製することなく容易に加工できることから，rn模型などの作製に広く利用されている．これまでに開発されてrnきた様々な積層造形手法は，それぞれ長所，短所を有しているrnが，なかでも最も早く商業化された光造形法は，微細性に優れrnており，透明な造形物が得られる数少ない造形方法であるため，rn汎用的な模型の製作手法として広く利用されている．