An RM for Assessing the Working Curve for Resin 3D Printing

NIST supports the nation's advanced manufacturing sector with tools that assure users and manufacturers of 3D‑printed products that their fabrication methods are accurate and reproducible. Reference Material (RM) 8047 provides quality control for the working curve in photopolymer manufacturing. Reliable working curves are essential to ensure the resin cures deeply enough for each layer to chemically bond without over-exposing the material.

RM 8047 is primarily a mixture of three different acrylate monomers/oligomers: SR494 (approximately 40 mass %) and PRO13514 (ca. 40 mass %) from Sartomer, and Genomer 1122 (approximately 20 mass %) from Rahn USA. To this mixture, some photoinitiator (diphenyl(2,4,6-trimethylbenzoyl)phosphine oxide, ca. 0.4 mass %) and photoabsorber (2,5-Bis(5-tert-butyl-benzoxazol-2-yl)thiophene, approximately 0.16 mass %) were added. Working curves were measured by interlaboratory study participants using three different sets of NIST-built and calibrated light sources at both 385 nm and 405 nm. The raw (nonzero) cure depth (C_d) and radiant exposure (E₀) pairs were analyzed by NIST and fit to the Jacobs Equation to extract the fit parameters for penetration depth (D_p) and critical exposure energy (E_c).

A unit of RM 8047 consists of one bottle of photoactive resin. Each bottle contains approximately 20 g of material.