3D soft lithography: A fabrication process for thermocurable polymers

Abstract

In this work, a novel fabrication process for thermocurable polymers that allows the fabrication of three-dimensional internal and external features is introduced. It is hard for other manufacturing processes to build thermocurable polymer parts with complex internal features. The proposed method allows the polymer to be cured at a given temperature rather than needing to continuously cure the polymer, which allows greater control over its properties. This process uses multimaterial additive manufacturing processes to build a 3D mold with support and uses solvents to remove the support as well as to dissolve the mold after curing of the polymer. This process was implemented using a commercial FDM machine to fabricate three PDMS parts that would be difficult or impossible to manufacture with other manufacturing processes. Results validate the feasibility of the proposed process and show that the resolution of the part corresponds to that of the machine used to fabricate the mold.