• Proceedings of the Korean Fiber Society Conference
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• 2001.10a
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• pp.9-12
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• 2001

Blending is an easy and popular means to achieve a desired set of characteristic properties. The blends, by melt mixing of thermoplastic materials and elastomer, have received considerable attention in recent years. It is well known that nearly all blends comprise one polymer domain dispersed in the matrices of the other polymer [1]. (omitted)

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.333-345
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• 2022

This study developed and evaluated the motion control of 3D printed fingers applied to smart gloves. Four motions were programmed by assembling the module using the Arduino program: cylindrical grasping, spherical grasping, tip-to-tip pinch gripping, and three-jaw pinch gripping. Cap and re-entrant (RE) strip types were designed to model the finger. Two types of modeling were printed using filaments of thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU). The prepared samples were evaluated using three types of pens for cylidrical grasping, three types of balls for spherical grasping, and two types of cards for tip-to-tip pinch gripping and three-jaw pinch gripping. The motion control of fingers was connected using five servo motors to the number of each control board. Cylindrical and spherical grasping were moved by controlling the fingers at 180° and 150°, respectively. Pinch gripping was controlled using a tip-to-tip pinch motion controlled by the thumb at 30° and index-middle at 0° besides a three-jaw pinch motion controlled by the thumb-index finger-middle at 30°, 0°, and 0°, respectively. As a result of the functional evaluation, the TPE of 3D-printed fingers was more flexible than those of TPU. RE strip type of 3D-printed fingers was more suitable for the motion control of fingers than the 3D-printed finger.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.24 no.6
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• pp.812-824
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• 2022

This study proposes to develop a 3D printed re-entrant(RE) strip by shape memory thermoplastic polyurethane that can be deformed and recovered by thermal stimulation. The most suitable 3D printing infill density condition and temperature condition during shape recovery for mechanical behavior were confirmed. As the poisson's ratio indicated, the higher the recovery temperature, the closer the poisson's ratio to zero and the better the auxetic properties. After recovery testing for five minutes, it appeared that the shape recovery ratio was the highest at 70℃. The temperature range when the shape recovery ratio appeared to be more than 90% was a recovery temperature of more than 50℃ and 60℃ when deformed under a constant load of 100 gf and 300 gf, respectively. This indicated that further deformation occurred after maximum recovery when recovered at a temperature of 80℃, which is above the glass transition temperature range. As for REstrip by infill density, a shape recovery properties of 100% was superior than 50%. Additionally, as the re-entrant structure exhibited a shape recovery ratio of more than 90%, and exhibited auxetic properties. It was confirmed that the infill density condition of 100% and the temperature condition of 70℃ are suitable for REstrips for applying the actuator.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Precision Engineering
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• v.26 no.11
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• pp.85-91
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• 2009

A lip seal is widely used not only to prevent leakage of fluids from an actuator or a rotating shaft but also to exclude outside substances. Recently, TPU(Thermoplastic Polyurethane), which is one of the sealing materials, has been frequently used due to its excellent mechanical properties and wear resistance. The material constants for finite element analysis through the experiment on stress relaxation are presented. The reaction forces of a shaft as well as the contact pressures of a lip seal under condition before and after stress relaxation using finite element analysis were obtained, The results show that stress relaxation has not a little effect on the performance of a lip seal.

• Fashion & Textile Research Journal
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.127-137
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• 2022

Recently, various clothing items are being developed using 3D printing technology, but comfort has become an issue while wearing them for a long time. Therefore, this study researched on how the temperature and humidity of the devices developed by 3D printing change depending on the material combination. Five types of material combinations (EVA foam, TPU density 10%, TPU density 30%, EVA foam+TPU density 10%, and EVA foam+TPU density 30%) were selected as variables, and the experiment was conducted for two different cases with and without a cover. All the ten types of samples were placed on the hot plate set at 36℃, and the surface temperature and humidity were measured at three different points for 10 minutes. As a result, the case with only TPU showed the greatest temperature change while the case with 100% EVA foam showed the least temperature change. The humidity of the surface layer gradually decreased with time for 100% EVA foam. For the case with TPU materials, the moisture was transferred to the surface layer at first, thereby increasing the humidity but then dropped significantly. Meanwhile, the cases with the cover on showed similar tendencies of change in both temperature and humidity where the overall temperature and humidity delivery were slow.

• Elastomers and Composites
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• v.58 no.1
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• pp.44-56
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• 2023

Additive manufacturing (AM) or three-dimensional (3D) printing of metals has been drawing significant attention due to its reliability, usefulness, and low cost with rapid prototyping. Among the various AM technologies, fused deposition modeling (FDM) or fused filament fabrication is receiving much interest because of its simple manufacturing processing, low material waste, and cost-effective equipment. FDM technology uses metal-filled polymer filaments for 3D printing, followed by debinding and sintering to fabricate complex metal parts. An efficient binder is essential for producing polymer filaments and the thermal post-processing of printed objects. This study involved an in-depth investigation of and a fabrication route for a novel multi-component binder system with steel alloy powder (45 vol.%) ranging from filament fabrication and 3D printing to debinding and sintering. The binder system consisted of polyvinyl pyrrolidone (PVP) as a binder and thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and polylactic acid (PLA) as a carrier. The PVP binder held the metal components tightly by maintaining their stoichiometry, and the TPU and PLA in the ratio of 9:1 provided flexibility, stiffness, and strength to the filament for 3D printing. The efficacy of the binder system was examined by fabricating 3D-printed cubic structures. The results revealed that the thermal debinding and sintering processes effectively removed the binder/carrier from the cubic structures, resulting in isotropic shrinkage of approximately 15.8% in all directions. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) patterns displayed the microstructure behavior, phase transition, and elemental composition of the 3D cubic structure.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.331-335
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• 2018

A pillow was fabricated through CAE(Computer Aided Engineering) and 3D printing, which can adjust automatically the height of the pillow when lying sideways and backwards according to the sleeping posture. The target height difference of the pillow was about 1.0 cm ~ 1.5 cm when the head weight difference was about 1.2 kg. Instead of using a complex mechanical device, it was based on an arch structure made of TPU. From the simulation, the optimum model was designed through series combination and the results were compared with the experimental ones. The final product had a height difference of about 2 cm according to the lying posture.

• Macromolecular Research
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.365-368
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• 2002

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPUs) with different hard segment length has been prepared from a fixed molar ratio of poly(tetramethylene ether glycol), 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate, and 1,4-butanediol by different polymerization procedures. Results reveal that the on-set temperature of endotherms ( $T_{cc}$ ) due to the crystallization of hard segments by cooling the TPUs from melt and the peak temperature of endotherms due to the melting of hard segments ( $T_{mh}$ ) by heating the TPUs increased and levelled off with increasing the hard segment length of TPUs. It has also been observed that soft segment glass transition temperature ( $T_{gs}$ ) of TPU decreased slightly with increasing the hard segment length, which explains less mixing of soft segments and hard segments. In tensile measurement of TPUs, strain hardening is observed with increasing the hard segment length, which is attributed to the strain induced crystallization of soft segments.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.35-40
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• 1999

The variations of the glass transition, melting peaks, molecular weight and its distribution (polydispersity index: PI) due to the annealing temperature and time have been investigated using the thermoplastic segmented polyurethanes (TPUs) and its blends based on the contents of hard segment. The position of the melting peak and its magnitude have been increased with the annealing temperature and time. This may be arised from the rearrangement of the microdomain structure due to the long-range or short-range segmental motion, the order-disorder transition of non-crystalline microphase, the variation of the domain size or the degree of disorder of crystalline structure by given different thermal histories. The annealing temperature and time affected the molecular weights and polydispersity : the number and weight average molecular weights were increased, while the polydispersity index (PI) deceased at certain temperatures : for TPU-35 at $135^{\circ}C$, for TPU-44 at $170^{\circ}C$ and for TPU-53 at $180^{\circ}C$. The temperatures which give the variations in molecular weights and in PIs are consistent with the annealing temperatures of which $T_3$ solely exists for each sample. Thus it is suggested that the chain dissosiation and recombination simultaneously occur at the above mentioned temperature for each sample.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.79-86
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• 2022

Numerous fabrication techniques have been used to mimic cylindrical natural tissues, such as blood vessels, tendons, ligaments, and skeletal muscles. However, most processes have limitations in achieving the biomimetic properties of multilayered and porous architectures. In this study, to embrace both features, a novel self-assembly method was proposed using electrospun microfibrous sheets. A bilayer microfibrous structure, comprising two sheets with different internal stresses, was fabricated by electrospinning a polycaprolactone (PCL) sheet on a uniaxially stretched thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) sheet. Then, by removing the stretching tension, the sheet was rolled into a hollow cylindrical structure with a specific internal diameter. The internal diameter could be quantitatively controlled by adjusting the thickness of the PCL sheet against that of the TPU sheet. Through this self-assembly method, biomimetic cylindrical structures with multilayer and porous features can be manufactured in a stable and controllable manner. Therefore, the resulting structures may be applied to various tissue engineering scaffolds, especially vascular and connective tissues.