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Stratasys supplying new additive manufacturing system

25 Aug '18

4 min read

Courtesy: Stratasys

With growing use of composites across industries, Stratasys, a leader in additive manufacturing or 3D printing technology, has started supplying an affordably priced additive manufacturing system dedicated for carbon-fibre-filled Nylon 12. The Fortus 380mc Carbon Fibre Edition is an industrial quality system that is being offered at $70,000 in the US.

Composite material has seen a year-over-year market growth between 8 to 12 per cent. Carbon fibre composite applications and carbon fibre reinforced polymers are considered clean energy technologies by the US Department of Energy because they enable “light-weighting,” which reduces energy consumption. It’s estimated that each ten per cent reduction in vehicle mass drives a six to eight per cent increase in fuel economy.

Stratasys was one of the first to offer a carbon fibre filled composite for additive, but it previously offered the material only on high-end production 3D printers in the $200K-$350K range. “Our customers are pushing us for easier access to carbon fibre,” says Stratasys senior vice president of sales, Pat Carey. “They’ve told us they want an affordable solution but in a reliable, industrial-quality system. So we’re now offering a more accessible system that’s based on our Fortus 380mc platform. Because the 380mc CFE is dedicated only to carbon-fibre-filled Nylon 12 and one other material, we’re able to currently offer it at the lowest price for any of our industrial printers.”

“For many years, the additive manufacturing industry has seen a need for a diversity of machines that produce parts in high-strength composite materials,” says Terry Wohlers of Wohlers Associates, an additive manufacturing industry consultancy. “I'm hopeful the newest machine from Stratasys will help to meet this need by offering strong parts in carbon fibre and Nylon 12.”

For both its IndyCar and NASCAR race cars, Team Penske uses FDM to produce prototypes and end-use parts from carbon-fibre-filled Nylon 12 composite material. The team recently used the composite to produce a mirror housing for its NASCAR race teams. After designing the mirror housing, engineers then customised the design for each of their Cup Series drivers before building the final parts from the composite via FDM. The carbon-fibre-based material enabled Team Penske to produce lightweight mirror housings with high impact resistance and high stiffness, each of which is critical in motorsports. The composite’s stiffness is especially beneficial when making thin-walled parts, so the parts won’t flex under the aerodynamic loads produced on track.

Additive applications for carbon-fibre-filled Nylon 12 may include functional prototyping of composite or metal parts, short production runs in a high-strength material, producing lightweight assembly tools for better ergonomics and reduced worker fatigue, and replacing metal parts with high strength, lightweight composite ones

Stratasys expects the quickest adopters of its Fortus 380mc CFE 3D Printer to be those making tooling and fixtures and those in industries that include automotive; recreational sporting equipment; marine; orthosis and prosthesis; defence; aerospace; medical equipment; oil and gas.

Similar to a typical injection molded carbon fibre reinforced plastic part, Stratasys Nylon 12CF is 35 per cent chopped carbon fibre by weight, and it exhibits the highest stiffness-to-weight ratio of any FDM or FFF 3D printed part.

The Fortus 380mc CFE is based on a proven platform that produces parts with repeatable dimensional accuracy. Parts don’t exhibit appreciable warpage or shrinkage and will hold to a tight tolerance. Stratasys Nylon 12CF is up to four times stronger than a competitively priced alternative in the X and Y axis, and it will maintain its mechanical properties at a 40 per cent higher temperature. The Fortus 380mc CFE is between two and five times faster than the competitively priced carbon-fibre-based 3D printer. (SV)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India