Development of a Platform for the Freeform Extrusion of a Glass Fiber Reinforced Photopolymer

Both additive manufacturing and topology optimization for continuous fiber reinforced composites are fields that have seen much attention lately. This paper presents the early development of a novel method of additive manufacturing which aims to enable the manufacture of structurally optimized fiber reinforced components. Existing methods of additive manufacturing with continuous reinforcement fibers are briefly discussed, after which the development of a freeform five-axis photopolymer extrusion system with continuous glass fiber reinforcement is presented. Finally, experiments performed to validate the basic functionality of the system are presented and discussed. A fiber volume fraction of 25 % was achieved, and the extrusion of several simple freeform geometries was demonstrated.