• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
• /
• v.20 no.10
• /
• pp.38-43
• /
• 2021

Photocurable hydrogels are widely used as 3D printing materials in tissue engineering (e.g., scaffold fabrication) as well as optical fibers (or optical sensors) materials. Photocurable hydrogels can control optical and mechanical properties such as chemical or fabrication conditions. In previous research, we introduced a new 3D printing method to fabricate a freestanding overhanging hydrogel structure without supporting structure. This study was measured and analyzed the difference of the mechanical properties of the photocurable hydrogel according to the light intensity using a micro tensile tester. In practically, it was difficult to perform a direct tensile test on a micro (less than 1 mm) size fiber. In this study, the tensile test of the hydrogel fibers could be measured simply and repeatedly using a paper carrier.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
• /
• v.60 no.2
• /
• pp.308-312
• /
• 2022

3D printing technology, which creates a physical object by various material deposition, has been widely used in recent years in the manufacturing field because of its advantages. Among the various printing technologies, droplet-based 3D printing technology (e.g., Polyjet^®) enables a high-resolution printing using photocurable materials such as hydrogels. Depending on the degree of light exposure, ejected photocurable droplets may have different properties (e.g., viscosity) until they collide with the substrate and it leads to the different spreading behaviors of the droplets (i.e., impact, spreading, and recoiling) during deposition on the substrate. In this study, experimental observation and analysis of the changes in hydrogel droplet viscosity and spreading behavior according to the light exposure were carried out based on high-speed image processing.