Low CTE Rapid Prototype Polymer

rfer · Nov 18, 2019

Hi,

I am looking for a low CTE polymer for rapid prototyping. This polymer can be filled (glass, carbon fiber, etc).

I need it to have a CTE around 15 ppm/deg C. It also need a glass transition temp, T_g > 100 deg C.

I have found Ultem 1010 and Ultem 9085 satisfy the T_g requirement, but have larger CTEs of around 45 ppm/C.

PEEK also satisfies the T_g requirement, but all variants I have found have a larger CTE than 15 ppm/C.

Does anyone know of any 3D printable polymers that satisfy these requirements?

Thank you!

Compositepro · Nov 19, 2019

To get to your target CTE the polymer would need to be filled to greater than 60% by volume. At such high filler levels the material no longer behaves as a liquid, and this severely limits the way that shapes can be formed. Compression molding of powders becomes the most common approach. You will probably not find injection molding grades with very low CTE.

hendersdc · Nov 19, 2019

The attached datasheet is for Nylon 12CF from Stratasys, it has a CTE of 25-27 ppm/C which might be as low as you are likely to get in a FDM-able plastic.

hendersdc · Nov 19, 2019

Never mind, just saw that its glass transition temp is too low for your use case.

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Low CTE Rapid Prototype Polymer

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