DRAHT – Printing of fiber-reinforced high-performance thermoplastics to realize complex load transfer elements
Development of highly stressed load transfer elements in real 3D printing and characterization of semi-finished printed products and components.
Project Partners
Apium Additive Technologies GmbH
Duration
01.10.2019 – 30.09.2019
Funding authority
German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy
Motivation
Additive manufacturing of components, often referred as "3D printing", is one of the key technologies for industry and manufacturing. There is a wide variety of printers in the field of additive manufacturing of plastic components, ranging from kits from electronics stores for a few hundred euros to suppliers promising industrial printing applications. So far, the technology has only made its way into everyday industrial life in prototype construction or development. The reasons for this include poor material properties, lack of precision and reproducibility, and, in concrete applications, geometric limitations due to printing kinematics.
Method
Within the project DRAHT, a uniform printing system for the production of structurally highly stressed components with a high variety of types made of fiber-reinforced high-performance thermoplastic is to be developed. The printing system comprises the fiber-reinforced thermoplastic PEEK, the printer hardware for real 3D printing (compared to the previously widely used 2.5D printing) and the associated software to exploit the potential of fiber reinforcement for highly stressed components. Of particular importance here is the idea of a coordinated system in combination with a deep understanding of the system.
Acknowledgement
The chair thankfully acknowledges the funding provided by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy under the scheme “Central Innovation Program for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)” on Printing of fiber-reinforced high-performance thermoplastics to realize complex load transfer elements (“Drucken faserverstärkter Hochleistungsthermoplaste zur Realisierung von komplexen Lasteinleitungselementen - DRAHT”)
Contact Persons
Dr.-Ing. Swen Zaremba