PROCESSING AND CHARACTERIZATION OF HONEYCOMBS FABRICATED BY STEREOLITHOGRAPHY

This work established the feasibility of constructing honeycombs by a new free form fabrication technique, stereolithography, which does not require the use of molds, dies, or tooling to make products. The repe atability of honeycomb construction in the SLA was found to be satisfa ctory; the density varied by a maximum of 17% from batch to batch in s pite of the very thin-wall construction (approximately 0.25 mm) of the honeycombs. The densities of 9.5 mm and 4.8 mm cell-size honeycombs w ere 98.5 kg/m3 and 180.7 kg/m3, respectively. For the 9.5 mm cell-size honeycombs, the specific in-plane shear strength ranged from 0.006 to 0.009 MPa.m3/kg, whereas the specific in-plane shear modulus ranged f rom 0.21 to 0.27 MPa.m3/kg. Stereolithography offers a very rapid mean s of constructing honeycombs as contrasted to conventional techniques. Other advantages include versatility in the design of the overall sha pe of the honeycombs, and the absence of directionality in mechanical properties.