3D Printing Watertight Enclosures and Pressure Testing Results

Waterproofness refers to a material’s inherent ability to repel water or prevent water from adhering to or being absorbed by a part. Watertightness refers to an object’s ability to prevent water from entering or exiting an enclosure, and has much to do with the construction of the enclosure or assembly as opposed to the fundamental nature of the components’ material.

While the waterproofness of different materials is inherently part of this experiment, the final results are based on the watertightness of multi-part enclosures. This is due to the utility of this type of data — creating watertight enclosures is difficult, and when done with traditional methods can be laborious and expensive. 3D printing presents a novel way of conducting high-quality deep-sea and coastal research, as well as aiding in a multitude of industries that have to conduct operations underwater, including defense, oil and gas, utilities, and more.

Since 3D printing has gained traction for customized or low volume applications, there have been efforts to use 3D printing for underwater applications. Underwater machinery or robotic components in industries like research, oil and gas drilling, and construction, are all unique — the types of parts and the functions they need to perform are specific to the needs of that venture. Therefore, underwater applications have traditionally been limited to well-funded ventures that can build expensive customized machinery and equipment. 3D printing has the ability to change that — to fabricate customized goods for research and development at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. To successfully deploy a 3D printed underwater solution, the right type of 3D printing technology and material should be carefully considered.