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Fused filament fabrication of Nylon beyond the glass transition temperature in a thermally-insulated machine

Year: 2023
Type: article
Abstract: Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a popular additive manufacturing process by extruding the molten thermoplastic from a nozzle to build an object layer-by-layer. Nylon is an engineering plastic that has good mechanical and chemical properties for assistive devices such as orthoses and prostheses (O&P). Nylon has been successfully applied in FFF of custom O&P. Based on the low glass transition temperature around 50-70℃ of Nylon, an idea to thermally-insulate the build chamber of an FFF machine to raise the temperature in the build volume to above Nylon’s glass transition temperature without additional heating is proposed. Without extensive active heating and cooling, such thermally-insulated FFF machines may achieve cost-effective FFF of custom O&P for practical use. This paper studies this FFF machine concept for FFF of dog bone specimens. The chamber of the FFF machine was thermally insulated. COMSOL Multiphysics® simulation software was adopted to predict the chamber’s temperature level and verified by experimental measurements with eight thermocouples. The effectiveness of the method was validated by the tensile test and microscopic observation of the printed tensile specimens. The strength of the FFF printed tensile specimens with thermally insulated chamber was 26.4% higher than that of the specimens printed at room temperature and close to the annealed FFF specimens. A better interlayer connection was also observed in the specimens FFF printed with the proposed method.
DOI: 10.1016/j.mfglet.2023.08.120
Language: English
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $1,690
OpenAlex ID: W4387463218
FWCI: 0.487
Cites: 23
Cited by: 7
Related to: 10