Die Additive Fertigung spielt heutzutage auch in der Automobilindustrie eine bedeutende Rolle. Eine Ausprägungsform, das pulverbett-basierte LaserCUSING®-Verfahren, bietet viele neue Möglichkeiten. Im Folgenden wird zunächst ein kurzer Überblick über das Verfahren gegeben und anschließend der Einsatz des LaserCUSING®s im Bereich Automotive anhand eines gemeinsamen Projekts der EDAG Engineering GmbH, des Laser Zentrums Nord, der BLM Group und der Concept Laser GmbH verdeutlicht. Hier wurde auf Basis des EDAG Light Cocoon ein topologisch optimierter und hybrid gefertigter Spaceframe entwickelt. Die Karosserieknoten wurden mittels LaserCUSING® additiv hergestellt.

<div>This research aims at investigating the direct in-situ synthesis of high-performance multi-component alloys such as high entropy alloys, bulk metallic glasses, and metal matrix composites using the directed energy deposition (DED) process, and modeling the entire solidification and microstructure evolution of these alloys via a novel three-dimensional cellular automata-phase field (3D CA-PF) model. These alloys are currently the focus of significant attention in the materials and engineering communities due to their superior material properties. In the 3D CA-PF model, the growth kinetics including the growth velocity and solute partition at the local solid/liquid interface is calculated by the multi-phase and multi-component PF component, and the 3D CA component uses the growth kinetics as inputs to calculate the dendrite morphology variation and composition redistribution for the entire domain, which could save the computational cost more than five orders of magnitude compared to the PF modeling that can only be applied to small domains due to its heavy computational requirements. Coupled with the temporal and spatial temperature history predicted by the experimentally validated DED model, this computation-efficient 3D CA-PF model can predict the microstructure evolution within the entire macro-scale depositions, which is known to be nonuniform due to the particular nature of additive manufacturing (AM) processes. </div><div>To achieve the final goal of direct in-situ synthesis of five-component CoCrFeCuNi high entropy alloys (HEA), and modeling of the solidification and microstructure evolution during the DED process, the proposed research is carried out in progressive stages with the increasing complexity of alloy systems. First, a simple binary material system of Ti-TiC composite was studied. The thermodynamically-consistent binary PF model is used to simulate the formation mechanism of detrimental resolidified dendritic TiCx. To capture the polycrystalline solidification, a grain index is introduced to link different crystallographic orientations for each grain. This PF model simulates the microstructure evolution of TiCx in different zones in the molten pool by combining the temperature history predicted by the DED model. The simulated results provide the solution of limiting the free carbon content in the melt, according to which, the formation of TiCx dendrites is successfully avoided by experimentally controlling the melting degree of premixed TiC particulates.</div><div>Second, the solidification, grain structure evolution, and phase transformation in the DED-built ternary Ti6Al4V alloy under the influences of thermal history are systematically simulated using the established simulation framework and a phase prediction model. The thermal history in a three-track deposition is simulated by the DED model. With such thermal information, the 3D CA model simulates the grain structure evolution on the macro-scale. The thermodynamically-consistent PF model predicts the local grain structure and concentration distributions of solutes Al and V on the micro-scale. The meso-scale CA-PF model captures the sub-grain microstructure evolution and concentration distributions of solutes within the entire molten pool. The dendritic morphology is captured within the large β grains. When the temperature drops below the β-transus temperature, the solid-state phase transformation of β→α/ is studied by the phase prediction model. Based on the predicted volume fractions of and α, the microhardness is also successfully assessed using rules of mixtures. </div><div>Third, the material system is expanded to a four-component ZrAlNiCu bulk metallic glass composite, whose raw composition is prepared by premixing the four pure elemental metals. The DED model is employed to obtain the temperature field and heating/cooling rates in single-track ZrAlNiCu bulk metallic glass composite, which provides insights for microstructure evolution. By delicate control of the material composition and utilization of the thermal history of the DED process, an amorphous-crystalline periodic structure is produced with in-situ formed crystalline particulates embedded in the amorphous matrix. This crack-free microstructure is successfully maintained within bulk parts, where a high fraction of the amorphous phase and crystalline phases are produced in the fusion zone and heat-affected zone, respectively. The large volume percentage of the amorphous phase contributed to the hardness, strength, and elastic modulus of the composite while the various soft crystalline phases improve the ductility by more than three times compared to monolithic metallic glasses. Nanoindentation tests are also performed to study the deformation behavior on the micron/sub-micron length scale. </div><div>Fourth, the material system is expanded to a five-component CoCrFeNiTi HEA alloy. Three CoCrFeNiTi HEA alloys with different compositions are designed and synthesized from premixed elemental powders via the DED process. Through a delicate design of composition and powder preparation, different microstructures are formed. H3-Co24.4Cr17.4Fe17.5Ni24.2Ti16.5 is mainly composed of a soft face-centered cubic (FCC)-γ phase while σ-FeCr, δ-NiTi2, and a small amount of Ni3Ti2 are precipitated and uniformed distributed in the FCC matrix for H1-Co22.2Cr16.1Fe19Ni21.8Ti20.9 and H2-Co25.9Cr15Fe17Ni20.8Ti21.3. With a large percent of the secondary phases, H1 exhibits a hardness value of about 853 HV0.5. These HEA alloys display a high oxidation resistance comparable to Inconel 625 superalloy. A detailed evaluation of the hardness, oxidation resistance, and wear resistance of these HEAs are conducted as compared with those of a reference HEA and two popular anti-wear steels.</div><div>Finally, a novel 3D Cellular Automata-Phase Field (CA-PF) model that can accurately predict the dendrite formation in a large domain, which combines a 3D CA model with a 1D PF component, is developed. In this integrated model, the PF component reformulated in a spherical coordinate is employed to accurately calculate the local growth kinetics including the growth velocity and solute partition at the solidification front while the 3D CA component uses the growth kinetics as inputs to update the dendritic morphology variation and composition redistribution throughout the entire domain. Taking advantage of the high efficiency of the CA model and the high fidelity of the PF model, the 3D CA-PF model saves the computational cost more than five orders of magnitude compared to the 3D PF models without losing much accuracy. By coupling the thermodynamic and kinetic calculations into the PF component, the CA-PF model is capable of handling the microstructure evolution of any complex multi-component alloys. Al-Cu binary alloys with 2 wt.% and 4 wt.% Cu are first used to validate the 3D CA-PF model against the Lipton-Glicksman-Kurz analytical model and a 3D PF model. Then, the 3D CA-PF model is applied to predicting the dendrite growth during large-scale solidification processes of directional solidification of Al-30wt.%Cu and laser welding of Al-Cu-Mg and Al-Si-Mg alloys. </div>

Lightweight mechanical metamaterials with exception specific stiffness and strength are useful in many applications, such as transportation, aerospace, architectures and etc. These materials show great potential in mechanical tasks where weight of the material is restrained due to economy or energy reasons. To achieve both the lightweight and the high specific mechanical properties, the metamaterials are often in form of periodic cellular structures with well-designed unit cells. The strategies in designing and improving such cellular structures become the key in the studies of such mechanical metamaterials. In this work, we use both experimental and numerical approaches while probing three types of mechanical metamaterials: i) composite bending dominated hollow lattices (HLs); ii) triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMSs) and extended TPMSs (eTPMSs); iii) corrugated TPMSs. We have demonstrated a few strategies in designing and improving the specific stiffness or strength via these examples of mechanical metamaterials. Using carbon/ceramic composite in the bending dominated HLs, we prove that using the composite layered material against the single layer ceramic is effective in improving the specific mechanical performances of the mechanical metamaterials. Next, while studying the nature of TPMS, we discover that under isotropic deformation TPMSs are stretch dominated with no stress concentrations within the shell structure. They also have an optimal specific bulk modulus approaching the H-S upper bound. Furthermore, we establish a strategy to smoothly connect the zero-mean-curvature surfaces in TPMSs with the extension of zero-Gaussion-curvature surfaces, forming new ‘eTPMSs”. These new shellular structures trade off its isotropy and have improved specific Young’s modulus along their stiffest orientation compared to their TPMS base structures. Lastly, we introduce corrugated sub-structures to existing TPMSs to improve their mechanical properties, such as Young’s modulus, yield strength and failure strength in compression. It is found that the corrugated sub-structure can effectively suppress the local bending behavior and redirect crack propagation while such structures were under uniaxial compression.

Additive manufacturing (AM) has the possibility of producing complex-shaped components which can not be produced by conventional manufacturing methods. This gives the opportunity for designers to freely think outside the design spectra which is otherwise limited by conventional manufacturing methods. AM of metal has rapidly been developed for the last three decades, and they now are reaching industrial acceptance levels, metal feedstock for use in AM is also rapidly growing. AM of metals is especially of interest for the tooling industry. The design freedom which AM offers the tooling manufacturer can design complex cooling channels within moulds, which could reduce cycle time and enhance the quality of components produced with the moulds. Maraging steels have been proven to both be able to be processed with AM but also have comparable performance to traditionally carbon-based used tool steels. Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is one of the most promising AM systems today, by using powder as a feedstock it can produce high-resolution parts without needing to process them after they have been produced. However, there is a need to better understand processing within the LPBF system. This master thesis is aimed to process a newly developed maraging steel from Uddeholm, and conduct process parameter experiment and study their correlation to be able to produce samples with as few defects possible. It is crucial to conform to a good methodology for how to find those correlations and see how they influence the printed material. LPBF process has a multi-complex variable system, and by narrowing down the complexity by focus on the most influencing parameters as has been proven by many researchers. Even with a reduced focus, it is still a multi-variable problem. In this study a methodology of finding process parameters relations, a Design Of Experiment software was used, namely, MODDE. By screening of process parameter ranges, within the software, a statistical evaluation of operational process window can be found with fewer conducted experiment. Development of process parameter can traditionally be time-consuming and result in an unnecessary large number of experiments to find the operational window. The experiment showed that laser power and point distance had the most influencing effect on relative density, followed by exposure time and hatch distance. The experiment was firstly conducted with a layer thickness of 50 µm, the achieved relative density resulted in over 99.8 percent. However, a large lack of fusion defects was observed inside the specimens. Even though a high relative density was measured, a pore analysis has to be conducted to fully understand the size and shape of defects since they can have a severe impact on mechanical properties. It was believed that the layer thickness was too high and that the defects could be reduced by printing a set with same process parameters but with a lower layer thickness of 40 µm instead. The reduction of layer thickness did result in a significant decrease of the defects observed. However, future work after this thesis must be continued to further optimize and to increase the solidity of printed material to reach closer to its conventional produced relatives / Additiv tillverkning har möjligheten att producera komplext konstruerade komponenter som inte kan produceras med konventionella tillverkningsmetoder. Detta ger konstruktörer möjligheten att fritt tänka utanför designspektra som annars begränsas av konventionella tillverkningsmetoder. Additiv tillverkning av metall har snabbt utvecklats under de senaste tre decennierna och har nu nått industriella acceptansnivåer. Metallråvara för användning i additiv tillverkning växer snabbt. Additiv tillverkning av metaller är särskilt intressant för verktygsindustrin, designfriheten som additiv tillverkning kan erbjuda verktygstillverkaren för att kunna utforma komplexa kylkanaler inuti formar. Det kan således reducera cykeltiden och förbättra kvaliteten på komponenter som produceras med formarna. Maråldringsststål har visat sig att både kunna processas i additiv tillverkning och har jämförbara egenskaper med traditionellt kolbaserade verktygsstål. Pulverbäddsystemet är ett av de mest lovande systemen idag, genom att använda pulver som råmaterial kan systemet producera komponenter med hög noggranhet utan att behöva bearbeta dem efter att processen är klar. Det finns emellertid ett behov av att bättre förstå själva processen inom pulverbädds teknologin. Den här masteruppsatsen syftar till att additivt tillverka ett nyutvecklat maråldringsstål från Uddeholm. Samt att genomföra processparameterexperiment och studera deras korrelation för att kunna producera prover med så få defekter som möjligt. Det är avgörande att hitta en metod för hur man hittar korrelationerna och se hur de påverkar det tillverkade materialet. Pulverbäddsystemet har ett multikomplext variabelsystem. För att minska komplexiteten kan fokus läggas på de mest inflytelserika processparametrarna, vilket har bevisats av många forskare. Även med ett reducerat fokus är det fortfarande ett flervariabelsproblem. I denna studie användes en metod för att hitta relationer mellan processparametrar och en Design Of Experiment-programvara, nämligen MODDE. Genom screening av processparametrar, inom programvaran, kan en statistisk utvärdering av operativt processfönster hittas med färre genomförda experiment. Utvecklingen av processparametrar kan traditionellt vara tidskrävande och resultera i ett onödigt stort antal experiment för att hitta det operativa fönstret av processparametrar. Experimentet visade att lasereffekt och punktavstånd påverkande den relativa densiteten mest, följt av exponeringstiden och spåravståndet. Experimentet genomfördes först med en lagertjocklek av 50 mikrometer, lagertjockleken resulterade i en relativ densitet på över 99,8 procent. Emellertid observerades stora fusionsdefekter inuti proverna. Även om en hög relativ densitet mättes, måste en poranalys genomföras för att fullt ut förstå storleken och formen på defekter eftersom de kan ha en avgörande inverkan på mekaniska egenskaperna. Det misstänktes att lagertjockleken var för hög och att defekterna kunde minskas genom att tillverka en ytterligare uppsättning av samma processparametrar men med en lägre lagertjocklek på 40 mikrometer istället. Minskningen av lagertjockleken resulterade i en signifikant minskning av de observerade defekterna. Framgent efter den här avhandlingen måste dock arbetet fortsätta att ytterligare optimera och öka soliditeten i det additivt tillverkade materialet. Det för att uppnå bättre prover och komma ännu närmre det konventionellt tillverkade materialets egenskaper.

<p>Soft actuators and sensors are currently used in many industrial applications due to their capability to produce an accurate response. Researchers have studied dielectric electroactive polymers (DEAPs) because these types of structures can be utilized as actuators and as sensors being able to convert electrical energy into mechanical and vice versa. However, production of this kind of structures is complex and in general involve several steps that are time consuming. Customization of these types of structures will be ideal to enhance the performance of the devices based on the specific application. 3D printing technologies have emerged as innovative manufacturing processes that could improve fabrication speed, accuracy, and consistency with low cost. This additive manufacturing technique allows for the possibility of increased device complexity with high versatility. </p> <p>This research studied the potential of 3D printing technologies to produce DEAPs, soft actuators, and flexible sensors. The study presents novel designs of these composite flexible structures, utilizing the most flexible conductive and nonconductive materials available for fused deposition modeling, achieving versatility and high performance in the produced devices. <a>Produced DEAP actuators showed an actuation and electric resistivity higher than other electroactive structures like shape memory alloys and ferroelectric polymers.</a> In addition, this research describes the electromechanical characterization of a flexible thermoplastic polyurethane, (TPU), produced by additive manufacturing, including measurement of the dielectric constant, percentage radial elongation, tensile proprieties, pre-strain effects on actuation, surface topography, and measured actuation under high voltage. DEAP actuators were produced with two different printing paths, concentric circles and lines, showed an area expansion of 4.73% and 5.71% respectively. These structures showed high resistance to electric fields having a voltage breakdown of 4.67 kV and 5.73 kV respectively. <a>Those results are similar to the resistant of the most used dielectric material “VHB 4910”. </a></p> <p>The produced soft pneumatic actuators were successfully 3D printed in one continuous process without support material. The structures were totally sealed without the use of any sealing material or post process. Computational simulations were made to predict the response of the designed structures under different conditions. These results were compared with experimental results finding that the theoretical model is able to predict the response of the printed actuators with an error of less than 7%. This error is satisfactorily small for modeling 3D printed structures and can be further minimized by characterization of the elastomeric material. Besides that, two different grippers were designed based on the opening and closing movements of single bellows actuators. The functionality of both designs was simulated and tested, finding that both designs are capable lifting a heavier rigid structure. </p> <p>Finally, this study presents a computational simulation of a 3D printed flexible sensor, capable of producing an output signal based on the deformation caused by external forces. Two different sensors were designed and tested, working based on a capacitance and resistance change produced by structural deformation. Computational analysis indicate the capacitance sensor should undergo change of capacitance from 3 to 8.5 pF when is exposed to 30 kPa; and the resistance sensor should experience an increase from 101.8 to 103 kΩ when is exposed to 30 kPa. </p>

Background: Emerging technologies enables manufacturing companies the opportunity to stay competitive and at the same time focus on increasing their sustainability impact. One such technology is additive manufacturing which has the potential to change the way manufacturing is performed and impact entire supply chains of manufacturing companies. Multiple studies have been done in the twenty-first century regarding additive manufacturing’s sustainability impact on logistics, although there is little research that focus on impact of additive manufacturing on transportation from a sustainable perspective. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the impact additive manufacturing has on the sustainability of inbound transportation. Method: A qualitative research strategy was used to explore the field of study through a multiple case study method. Through two cases, raw material providers and manufacturers within the additive manufacturing industry, data was gathered using semi-structed interviews. Conclusion: Findings from this study shows that additive manufacturing may have a sustainable impact on inbound transportation from an environmental, societal, and economic perspective. Additive manufacturing is more environmentally sustainable than conventional manufacturing for the inbound transportation leg from the raw material supplier to the manufacturing company since the technology requires lower volume of raw material to be transported, it leads to a higher transport efficiency, less frequent transportation need, and requires no return transportation. In economic impact it leads to fuel savings, less frequent transportation with less material, and a reduced inventory holding. Access to remote areas together with easier and safer material handling is the societal impact from using additive manufacturing instead of conventional manufacturing.

No description available.

<div>From its advent in the 1980s until the 2000s, many of the advances in additive manufacturing (AM) technology were primarily focused on the development of various 3D printing techniques. During the 2000s, AM came to a juncture where these processes were well developed and could be used effectively for rapid prototyping purposes; however, the ability to produce functional components that could reliably perform in a given system had not been fully achieved. The primary focus of AM research since this juncture has been to transition AM from a rapid prototyping technique to a legitimate means of mass manufacturing end-use products. In order to make this happen, two significant areas of research needed to be advanced. The first area focused on advancing the limited selection and functionality of the materials being used for AM. The second area focused on the characterization of the end-use products comprised of these new materials.</div><div><br></div><div>The primary goals of the work described in this document are to substantially further the field of the additive manufacturing by developing new functional materials and subsequently characterizing the resultant printed components. The primary focus of the first two chapters (Chapters 2 and 3) is to further characterize an energetic material system comprising of aluminum (Al) particles embedded in a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) binder, which has been shown to be compatible with AM. This material system has the ability to be implemented as a lightweight multifunctional energetic structural material (MESM); however, significant characterization of its structural energetic properties is needed to ensure reliable MESM performance. First, variations of a previously demonstrated Al/PVDF filament were investigated in order to determine the effect of material constituents on the structural energetic properties of the material. Seven different Al/PVDF formulations, with various particle loadings and particle sizes, were considered. The modulus of elasticity and ultimate strength for the seven formulations were obtained via quasi-static tensile testing of 3D printed dogbones. The energetic performance was quantified via burning rate measurements and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) of 3D printed samples. Next, variations in the AM process were made and the effect of print direction on the same properties was determined. Once viable MESM performance was quantified, representative structural elements were printed in order to demonstrate the ability to create structural energetic elements. During quasi-static tensile testing, it was observed that aligning the load direction perpendicular to the print direction of the component resulted in inferior mechanical properties. This reduction in mechanical properties can be attributed to the lack of continuity at material interfaces, a well studied phenomena in AM.</div><div><br></div><div>This phenomena is the primary focus of the next two chapters (Chapters 4 and 5), which investigate the polymer healing process as it pertains to fusion-based material extrusion additive manufacturing, also known as fused filament fabrication (FFF). In the context of the FFF process, the extent of the polymer healing, or lack thereof, at the layer interface is known to be thermally driven. Chapter 4 quantifies the relationship between the reduction in mechanical properties and the temperature of the previously deposited layer at the time the subsequent layer is deposited. This relationship gives insight into which parameters should be closely monitored during the FFF process. The following chapter investigates incorporating plasma surface treatment as a means to improve the reduced mechanical properties seen in Chapter 3 and 4. As plasma surface modification can affect various stages of the polymer healing process, a variety of experiments were completed to determine which mechanisms of the plasma treatment were significantly affecting the mechanical properties of the FFF components. The thermal history was analyzed and it was hypothesized that enhanced diffusion at the layer interface was not a significant contributor to, but a rather a detractor from, the improved mechanical properties in this system. A variety of tests investigating how the plasma treatment was affecting the wettability of the surface were performed and all of the tests indicated that the wettability was increased during treatment and was likely the driving mechanism causing the improvement seen in the mechanical properties. These tests give some initial insight into how to successfully pair plasma treatment capabilities with FFF systems and give insights into how that plasma treatment can affect the polymer healing process in FFF applications.</div>

The FeCo-V alloy, commercially referred to as Hiperco, is known for its great soft magnetic properties. However, the high cost of production has limited the usage of this alloy to small-scale applications, where the small volume and high magnetic performance are critical. Additive manufacturing (AM) has the potential to solve the production problems that exist in Hiperco manufacturing. The present research has focused on selective laser melting (SLM) based AM processing of Hiperco. The goal was to perform a detailed examination of SLM processed Hiperco and determine how the process parameters affect the microstructure, mechanical and magnetic properties. While a systematic set of SLM process parameters were employed, the results indicate that the energy density was quite similar for this set of process parameters, resulting in similar properties. Overall, the saturation magnetization (Ms) values were very good, but the coercivity (Hc) values were very high, in the case of all as SLM processed conditions. Additionally, a large variation in porosity was observed in the as SLM processed samples, as a function of process parameters. Interestingly, long-term heat-treatments of these samples in an Ar+H2 atmosphere resulted in substantial decreases in the Hc values. These results are presented and discussed.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden neue Materialien für die additive Fertigung für opti-sche Anwendungen entwickelt. Hierbei wurde zunächst ein ORMOCER® Harz für den LCD/DLP 3D-Druck synthetisiert und charakterisiert. Das Material zeigte eine gute Druckbarkeit, gute optische Eigenschaften und eine hohe Stabilität gegenüber Belas-tungen mit UV-Licht, Temperatur und Luftfeuchtigkeit. Die prozessbedingte Stufenbil-dung für gekrümmte Oberflächen beim LDC/DLP Druck erforderte eine Weiterentwick-lung zu einem Harz, das auch mittels Inkjet-Verfahren gedruckt werden kann. Hierfür mussten die Viskosität des ORMOCER®s und die Einflüsse darauf untersucht werden. Zu diesem Zweck wurde die Synthese entsprechend verändert und die Produkte cha-rakterisiert. Variationen des Wasseranteils, des Katalysators, der Reaktionszeit, der Re-aktionsführung und der Edukte wurden durchgeführt. Harze mit resultierender niedriger Viskosität dürfen zusammenfassend nur zweifach anorganisch vernetzende Edukte mit niedrigem Reibungskoeffizienten beinhalten. Ein H2O-Verhältnis von 0,5 zu den vorlie-genden Si-O-Gruppen resultiert in akzeptablen Viskositäten und einer ausreichenden Stabilität. Als zuverlässiger Katalysator stellte sich HCl heraus. Die Reaktionszeit muss so gewählt werden, dass die Sol-Gel-Synthese abgeschlossen ist. Kürzere Zeiten füh-ren zwar zu kleineren Viskositäten, jedoch auch zu eventuell schlechter Langzeitstabili-tät. Veränderungen in der Reaktionsführung, durch Zutropfen der Edukte, resultierten jedoch vorwiegend zur Erhöhung der Viskositäten. Mit diesen Erkenntnissen wurde an-schließend ein Harz synthetisiert, das erfolgreich ohne weitere Verdünnungsschritte am Inkjet-Drucker prozessiert werden konnte. Dieses Harz ist zusätzlich auch am LCD/DLP Drucker einsetzbar. Als ergänzender Schritt konnte im Anschluss noch gezeigt werden, dass Partikel in Harze zusätzliche Eigenschaften, wie Fluoreszenz, einbringen können. / In the present work, new materials for additive manufacturing for optical applications were developed. First, an ORMOCER® resin for LCD/DLP 3D printing was synthe-sized and characterized. The material showed good printability, good optical proper-ties and high stability against exposure to UV light, temperature and humidity. The process-related step formation for curved surfaces in LDC/DLP printing required fur-ther development of a resin that can also be printed by inkjet. For this purpose, the variables of the viscosity of ORMOCER®s had to be investigated. For this purpose, the synthesis was modified accordingly, and the products were characterized. Varia-tions of the water content, the catalyst, the reaction time, the way of the reaction and the reactants were carried out. In summary, resins with resulting low viscosity may contain only twofold inorganic crosslinking reactants with low friction coefficient. An H2O ratio of 0.5 to the Si-O groups present results in acceptable viscosities and suffi-cient stability. HCl turned out to be a reliable catalyst. The reaction time must be as long as the sol-gel synthesis needs to be completed. Shorter times lead to lower vis-cosities, but also to possibly poor long-term stability. However, changes in the reaction control, for example by adding reactants dropwise, resulted mainly in an increase in viscosity. These findings were then used to synthesize a resin that could be success-fully processed on the inkjet printer without further dilution steps. This resin can also be used on the LCD/DLP printer. As a complementary step, it was subsequently shown that particles can introduce additional properties, such as fluorescence, into resins. Here, quantum dots, black dyes and refractive index-increasing zirconium dioxide particles were successfully incorporated into LCD/DLP resins and characterized.