Using material characterization to study the ageing effects of polymer powders for 3D printing

About The Event

Additive manufacturing is a group of fast-growing technologies that are rapidly maturing. An important part of this development is the insights material characterization provides to understand and optimize the processes, as well as developing new materials. This is particularly true for powder bed fusion (PBF) of polymers, where most of the market is dominated by nylon-12 materials. During PBF, solid powder forms the support of a melted part shape. This powder remains at elevated temperatures, just below the melt, for significant periods of time, sometimes many hours at the bottom of the build. Therefore, they are at risk of ageing with consequences on processing behaviour and part performance. Typical materials used in PBF are nylons and some TPUs with more and more new materials, including commodity polymers such as polypropylene, being under investigation. In this talk we will summarize work to investigate the ageing of Nylon 12 (glass filled and unfilled) and Polypropylene using various analytical techniques including Rheology, Gel Permeation Chromatography and Differential Scanning Calorimetry. The aim is to link molecular properties of the polymer with rheology and crystallization dynamics of the powders and printed parts.