Jetting of Reactive Materials for Additive Manufacturing of Nylon Parts

The first stages in the research of a radically new digital fabrication process of nylon parts are presented in this paper. The fabrication process is based on additive layer manufacturing where two reacting mixtures are deposited via printing onto a moving surface. At elevated temperature, each layer is expected to start a reaction to polymerize nylon 6. The jetability of the mixtures consisting of caprolactam, catalyst and activator were investigated to find appropriate range of stable jetting parameters. Droplet formation characteristics were studied for the deposition stage. By overcoming the challenges in jetting and deposition of the reactive mixtures, this digital fabrication process could compete with the conventional casting and injection molding processes as it benefits from both rapid and tool-free aspects of additive manufacturing and high resolution and multi-material deposition of printing technology. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/ist/nipdf/2009/00002009/00000002/art00102