Rapid prototyping of wood-based material

Abstract

This paper presents initial development of wood-based composites with the aim to develop an alternative material at low cost for rapid prototyping process. Powder blends containing wood powder (90- 120μm) with commercial ZP102 as a plaster powder material from ZCorporation were mechanically blended to produce different composition of (vol.%) 25:70, 50:50 and 75:25 respectively. The blended material were successfully processed on 3D printers (Z406) which was used as a rapid prototyping machine to produce three-dimensional components and followed by post-treatment with ZMax solution to improve the mechanical properties. The mechanical properties, dimensional accuracy and surface quality of the build components were evaluated and the results were compared with the unfilled ZP102 material. The result shows that the mechanical properties were improved with the increasing of wood powder content up to 50 vol.%. However, dimensional accuracy and surface quality were decreased as the wood content increased. Further work on powder preparation is required in order to fully realize these performance benefits particularly for surface quality improvement.