Benchmarking Mechanical Properties of 3D printed elastomeric Microstructures [data]

DOI

The characterization of mechanical properties in soft 3D printed materials at the microscale remains a significant challenge due to the lack of standardized methodologies. To address this issue, a microscale nanoindentation protocol for elastomeric 3D printed microstructures is developed, optimized, and benchmarked. Herein, a conospherical indenter tip (r = 10.26 µm), a modified trapezoidal displacement profile with lift-off segments to capture adhesion interactions, and the nano-Johnson-Kendall-Roberts model for data analysis are employed. The protocol is optimized and verified using four newly developed PDMS-based inks for two-photon 3D laser printing. The results are compared to a state-of-the-art literature protocol that uses a Berkovich tip and the Oliver-Pharr model. It is shown that adhesion forces play a significant role in mechanical properties overestimation, showing differences of up to 80% between the different protocols. This study highlights the importance of carefully selecting characterization protocol to yield comparable results between studies. By providing a standardized protocol, it paves the way for straightforward and accurate characterization of mechanical properties in soft 3D printed materials at the microscale.

Identifier
DOI https://doi.org/10.11588/DATA/4OZZTW
Metadata Access https://heidata.uni-heidelberg.de/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_datacite&identifier=doi:10.11588/DATA/4OZZTW
Provenance
Creator Eivgi, Or ORCID logo; Vazquez-Martel, Clara ORCID logo; Lukeš, Jaroslav; Blasco, Eva ORCID logo
Publisher heiDATA
Contributor Blasco, Eva
Publication Year 2025
Funding Reference German Research Foundation (DFG) via the Excellence Cluster “3D Matter Made to Order” EXC-2082/1-390761711 ; Carl Zeiss Foundation “Carl-Zeiss-Foundation-Focus@HEiKA”
Rights CC BY 4.0; info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
OpenAccess true
Contact Blasco, Eva (Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Adv. Mater. (IMSEAM), Heidelberg University)
Representation
Resource Type Dataset
Format application/zip; text/plain
Size 3771887; 4482574; 1975573; 386
Version 1.0
Discipline Chemistry; Natural Sciences; Polymer Materials; Polymer Research