MATERIALS | 3D PRINTING
Right: Fine detailed porous structure printed in Victrex PEEK using Bond 3D technology
Solvay’s Radel PPSU that will meet stringent FAR 25.853 compliance requirements for use in aerospace applications. Both companies aim to commercialise the product next year. “Additional high-performance products meeting industry-spe- cific needs in other key AM end-use markets will follow,” says Solvay. Earlier, this March, Solvay also said that following
spectrum of Step materials to include materials currently accepted by OEMs from additive manu- facturing, but more importantly to debut a whole new set of materials opening up more applications that can take advantage of everything additive manufacturing offers.” This March, Victrex began a multi-million-euro investment in Bond High Performance 3D Technology, a company based in Enschede, The Netherlands, that has developed a combination of AM machinery and software that can produce high strength parts from existing grades of high-perfor- mance thermoplastics, such as Victrex. Bond says it has “adapted the printing process to the material instead of manipulating the material to make it printable.”
“Our investment in Bond´s 3D technology is a logical way to accelerate 3D printed PAEK/PEEK parts to market,” says Victrex CEO Jakob Sigurds- son. “We need to ensure that all the key elements, including material, process, and hardware are aligned to fulfil our goal of enabling our customers to manufacture 3D printed PAEK components for critical high-performance applications. We’re now at a stage where the technology is sufficiently developed to embark on exciting development programs.”
Right: LehVoss Group has developed Luvosint PP which comple- ments its Luvosint TPU material
Over the last year or so, Solvay has also been making various moves in AM. Most recently, in May, it announced a cooperation agreement with Stratasys to develop new high-performance filaments for exclusive use in Stratasys’ FDM F900 3D printers. “Stratasys’ customers have been repeatedly asking for more varied, high-performance materi- als, while many of Solvay’s customers want our high-performance polymers to be enabled for use on Stratasys’ industrial 3D printing systems,” says Christophe Schramm at Solvay. “This important partnership between our two companies now allows us to fulfil these burgeoning needs.” The two companies will work together to develop a high-performance AM filament based on
34 INJECTION WORLD | June 2019
more than two years of cooperation, it had entered into a research collaboration agreement with Aerosint to develop an economically viable SLS printing process for high-performance polymers. High-performance polymers such as KetaSpire PEEK and Ryton PPS have the potential to open new avenues for AM in demanding applications, but their adoption with key powder fusion technologies such as SLS remains limited today, Solvay says. According to Aerosint MD Edouard Moens, SLS machines that can process high-temperature-poly- mers “are carefully designed and assembled with sophisticated and expensive components. How- ever, at present, there is a significant operating cost disadvantage during the build, which is the excessive waste of up to 90% percent of ‘used-but- unfused’ powder. Our patented spatially-selective, multiple-powder deposition system under devel- opment incorporates a non-fusible support material in each layer where expensive high-perfor- mance polymers are not required, thereby reduc- ing material waste to very low levels.”
PP for AM It’s not just high-end materials that are breaking into AM. LehVoss Group says its Luvosint PP for powder bed fusion processes complements its Luvosint TPU, introduced in 2013. “Luvosint PP provides outstanding properties and enables 3D printed parts to even outperform injection mould- ed parts,” says Thomas Collet, Director Marketing in the company’s Customised Polymer Materials business unit.
www.injectionworld.com
PHOTO: BOND HIGH PERFORMANCE 3D TECHNOLOGY
PHOTO: LEHVOS
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