Developing the optimized control scheme for continuous and layer-wise DLP 3D printing by CFD simulation

In recent years, a series of continuous fabrication technologies based on digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing have emerged, which have significantly improved the speed of 3D printing. However, limited by the resin filling speed, those technologies are only suitable to print hollow structures. In this paper, an optimized protocol for developing continuous and layer-wise hybrid DLP 3D printing mode is proposed based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Volume of the fluid method is used to simulate the behavior of resin flow while Poiseuille flow, Jacobs working curve, and Beer-Lambert law are used to optimize the key control parameters for continuous and layer-wise printing. This strategy provides a novel simulation-based method development scenario to establish printing control parameters that are applicable to arbitrary structures. Experiments verified that the printing control parameters obtained by simulations can effectively improve the printing efficiency and the applicability of DLP 3D printing.