Stereolithography 3D printing is today recognized as an effective rapid prototyping technique in the field of polymeric materials, which represents both the strengths and the weaknesses of this technique. The strengths relate to their easy handling and the low energy required for processing, which allow for the production of structures down to the sub-micrometric scale. The weaknesses are a result of the relatively poor mechanical properties. Unfortunately, the choice of the right material is not sufficient, as the printing parameters also play a crucial role. For this reason, it is important to deepen and clarify the effect of different printing conditions on final product characteristics. In this paper, the behavior of commercial Standard Blend (ST Blend) acrylic resin printed with stereolithography (SL) apparatus is reported, investigating the influence of printing parameters on both the tensile properties of the printed parts and the build accuracy. Twenty-four samples were printed under different printing conditions, then dimensional analyses and tensile tests were performed. It was possible to find out the optimum printing setup to obtain the best result in terms of mechanical resistance and printing accuracy for this kind of resin. Finally, a micrometric spring was printed under the optimal conditions to demonstrate the possibility of printing accurate and tiny parts with the commercial and inexpensive STBlend resin.
The present paper deals with the selective laser writing of textile yarns in order to induce a conductive path useful for smart textiles application. The incident power of the laser induces a conversion of an aramid fiber surface into graphene-based conductive material with tunable electrical properties depending on the laser writing parameters. The physical-chemical properties of the resulting smart yarns have been intensively characterized by electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, electrical and mechanical investigations. The results confirm the few-layer graphene fingerprint of the written paths onto the textile yarn with suitable properties for their application into electronic textiles. Indeed, a yarn-shape strain sensor with excellent performance has been developed and characterized to demonstrate the potential application of the proposed technology to the wearable electronic field.
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