Polyether ether ketone (PEEK) polymer pioneer Victrex has developed new materials for additive manufacturing (AM). These include a high strength material for laser sintering (LS) and a filament with improved Z-strength when compared to existing polyaryletherketone (PAEK) materials and better printability for filament fusion (FF).
‘These next-generation VICTREX PAEK materials for additive manufacturing mark a decisive step forward, having potential to transform multiple applications, including aerospace and medical,’ said Jakob Sigurdsson, Victrex CEO. ‘Advantages of additive manufacturing can be deployed to reduce costs, shorten time to market, and enable the production of parts too complex to be manufactured using traditional methods. The PAEK incumbent materials on the market today, although used in some AM applications, were designed for conventional manufacturing methods, such as machining and injection molding. Because of this, they have some features that aren’t optimal for additive manufacturing processes. A first generation of PAEK material for laser sintering can only be recycled in a very low extent and required nearly full refresh of the printing bed with new powder, and PEEK filaments available for FF have poor interlayer bonding, leading to a loss in Z-strength.
‘The new polymer grades developed by Victrex have shown encouragingly low refresh rates (improves recycle for unsintered powder) with similar mechanical properties in LS, and in FF good mechanical properties and printability.’
This story is reprinted from material from Victrex, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
