Experimental research on the impact of oxygen control zone thickness on continuous layerless printing of porous polymer parts

The additive manufacturing system using the continuous liquid interface production (CLIP) method, which was designed and constructed by the researchers of this article, was utilized in this research to examine the impacts of the oxygen control area's thickness on the speed of producing parts. The main goal of this research is to produce porous parts 10 times faster compared to the digital light processing (DLP) method. However, it's crucial to look at the printing height, the part failure rate, as well as the part curing depth in order to achieve this speed increase. One of the most crucial factors affecting the aforementioned circumstances is undoubtedly the oxygen control zone. Therefore, two window-shaped (island and microchannel) special gas-permeable membranes were utilized as the bed of the liquid resin container to generate this zone. Furthermore, employing each of the aforementioned windows, parts with a porous and complex structure were manufactured and evaluated. The usage of an island-like container increased the duration of continuous printing by 107% before the separation force begins, reduced maximum separation force by 4.7 times, and increased the height of the printed component by 30%, according to the study's findings. It also improved the part's visual quality.