Rapid, Low-Cost Resin Extrusion Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Derived Ceramic Tooling for Rubber Compression Molding

Through the proposed SBIR program, MacroVation will provide the Navy with a rapid low-cost, non-hazardous additive manufacturing (AM) technology for producing undersea neoprene sensor components from high strength, high temperature, and thermally conductive polymeric tooling. MacroVation’s nontoxic, VOC-free polymeric materials will be empirically optimized for direction integration into commercially available resin extrusion additive manufacturing technologies that are fast, safe, and commercially scalable into Navy production environments. MacroVation’s ceramic-reinforced polymeric materials are biofriendly and will generate zero organic waste streams. In support of a graceful Phase III transition into numerous compression molding tooling applications, MacroVation’s tooling materials will be tailored for facile integration into a broad spectrum of commercially available off-the-shelf (COTS) resin extrusion printers (REP). It will also provide essential combinations of structural integrity and thermomechanical toughness necessary for retaining the Navy referenced dimensional tolerances following hundreds of duty cycles that include continuous use temperatures of 300 F and clamping forces exceeding 15 tons within metal master unit die (MUD) frames.