Printed Composite Tooling for Lay-Up, Infusion and Cure: Surface, Permeability, Thermal Expansion and Tool Life

Additively manufactured photopolymer tooling can shorten the route to composite moulds, but the printed tool becomes part of the cure process and must therefore be qualified as a thermal, mechanical and vacuum boundary. Tool-face roughness and porosity can imprint the laminate or compromise vacuum; coefficient of thermal expansion can shift geometry through the cure cycle; and creep or post-cure reactions can accumulate across repeated use. This review develops a qualification framework for lay-up, infusion, oven and autoclave tooling. It separates the as-printed shell from machined or coated mould faces, requires leak and permeability testing before laminate manufacture, and couples thermal mapping with dimensional measurement through representative cure cycles. Direct research on photopolymer formulations for autoclave-capable tooling and on additively manufactured cure tools shows the importance of smooth, vacuum-tight surfaces, predictable thermal expansion and structural stiffness. The central conclusion is that tool life is not a material datasheet property; it is the number of qualified cure cycles for which the complete tool maintains geometry, surface, vacuum integrity and release performance.

ER-284 · Version 0.3.