Additive Manufacturing of Polymer Materials for Industrial Applications

Additive Manufacturing (AM) can reduce weight, cost, and lead time for complex parts when compared to traditional manufacturing processes. This rapidly expanding technological family is widely used for prototypes, tooling, and production parts in aerospace, medical, and other industries. Material creation, characterization, qualification, certification, and end-of-life (EoL) consideration are the primary axioms concerning the industrialization of 3D printing. This work presents the current state-of-the-art AM polymer materials, machines, and ongoing standardization efforts. Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printing is used to study the tensile properties of standard and high-performance thermoplastics using ASTM D638-14 type I and type II coupon geometries. Victrex AM 200 type II coupons printed via in-situ crystallization in a 160°C chamber had a mean room temperature (RT) tensile strength of 78.9 MPa, Young’s modulus of 3.30 GPa, and failure strain of 5.30%. Lastly, multi-coupon shear specimens and others to study the drapability of polymer materials are presented.