Testing 3D Printed Materials for CT Imaging
Not every research collaboration starts with a finished part. Some of the best ones start with a cube.
A Question Before a Part
Dr. Kim Selting, a researcher in the College of Veterinary Medicine, came to the MakerLab interested in 3D printed components for CT scan work. Rather than jump straight to printing a finished piece, the first order was deliberately simple: one-inch cubes at 100% infill, printed in TPU and in semi-flex filament.
The purpose was to see how those materials actually behave under CT imaging before designing anything around them.
Why Cubes, and Why Solid
The experimental design here is worth noticing, because it is the kind of thing that saves a project weeks:
- Identical geometry across both samples means the only thing that varies is the material. Any difference observed in the scan can be attributed to the filament rather than to the shape.
- 100% infill removes internal air gaps as a confounding variable. A standard 20% infill part is mostly structured air, which would dominate the imaging result.
- A one-inch cube is large enough to image meaningfully and small enough to be cheap.
The whole test came to 35 grams of material and about ten dollars. The samples were picked up for review.
Small Tests, Then Real Parts
We see a lot of research projects, and the ones that go smoothly tend to look like this. A researcher has a question the literature does not answer for their specific setup, so they spend ten dollars and a few days answering it directly, and only then commit to designing the actual component.
Printing is cheap enough that testing first is almost always the right call, whether you are validating a material, a tolerance, or a mounting scheme.
Working on research that could use custom parts or material testing? Get in touch and we will help you scope a first test.