Effect of binder content on the material properties of polymethyl methacrylate fabricated by three dimensional printing technique

This study reports the development of polymethyl methacrylate-based mixture which is suitable for direct freeform fabrication by three dimensional printing (3DP) technique. The influence of different compositions on formability, physical and mechanical properties of fabricated 3DP samples was studied. It was found that binder content in the composition should be greater than 10% for successful fabrication of polymethyl methacrylate samples by 3DP technique. This is reported to increase the bulk density by 25%, modulus and strength up to about 40 times and 22 times, respectively and decrease amount of porosity in the specimens by 26% when the binder content increased from 10 to 60%. Dimensional errors of the fabricated parts compared to input graphical image for all formulations did not exceed 6% in all directions. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.