LiVe-gEn - Laser-based inline crosslinking for additive manufacturing of elastomer components

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Ulrich Giese; Professor Dr.-Ing. Ludger Overmeyer
• Subject Area: Plastics Engineering ; Polymer Materials ; Primary Shaping and Reshaping Technology, Additive Manufacturing
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 563564708

The overall aim of the research project is to investigate the inline crosslinking of rubbers using lasers in order to improve the additive manufacturing of rubber-based elastomer components. In additive manufacturing of rubber components, a thermoplastic shell has been used up to now, as non-vulcanized rubber is flowable. On the one hand, the new process enables more resource-efficient production, as the thermoplastic support structure is no longer required. On the other hand, production is significantly accelerated as less printing time is required and only one joint process step is needed for production and vulcanization. The most efficient laser heat input strategy needs to be investigated. This raises the question of whether vulcanization should take place in situ by laser directly during the strand-by-strand deposition of the rubber or only after a layer has been fully printed. In addition, it is necessary to analyze what power input is required as a dependence on the laser spot size and the exposure time in order to achieve the desired cross-linking in the rubber. Preliminary tests have already shown that vulcanization by heat input using a laser is possible in general. This process is now to be further researched independently of the rubber compound and type of crosslinking in order to increase geometric stability during additive manufacturing. On the materials side, the Giese working group is concentrating on investigating which properties filled rubber compounds based on vinyl-functionalized polydienes must have in order to be suitable for optimal in-situ addition crosslinking by laser initiation. The Overmeyer working group, on the other hand, is pursuing the aim of researching the required process parameters for additively manufactured, laser-crosslinked components and integrating a suitable laser system into the additive manufacturing process.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Dr.-Ing. Benjamin Klie