Institute of Fundamental Technological Research

The thermoplastic polymers present amorphous or semi-crystalline structures which are very important factors in describing volumetric shrinkage. The thermoplastic materials are commonly used for production of daily life products, industrial or as the prototypes. Different techniques of manufacturing polymer structures are considered like: injection molding, extrusion, milling, additive manufacturing (AM). AM is a very fast developing field in the manufacturing and research. Unfortunately, components or prototypes made using the thermoplastic semi-crystalline materials in 3D techniques have quite low mechanical strength compared to the parts made by injection molding processes. It is caused by porosity obtained during the processing, as well as by fraction of crystallinity in the volume of the components. Additionally, the volumetric shrinkage is hard to predict without knowledge of its origin. Therefore, it is necessary to consider crystallization kinetics and the melting of the analysed materials. The investigations presented in this work concern the crystallization and melting model to be implemented in the finite element (FE) analyses. With use of the model, one can predict development of the structure during the real processes and, in the future, to control the warpage of the manufactured components.

additive manufacturing, Avrami model, crystallization, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), glass transition temperature, Hoffman-Lauritzen theory, melting, PA2200, van Krevelen empirical model

Additive Manufacturing (AM) process is a very fast and promising technique to build various very complex prototypes and components directly in the industry. One can choose different techniques of AM like Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) dedicated for thermoplastic materials or Direct Laser Metal Sintering (DMLS) for powder metals, or Stereolitography Apparatus (SLA) for thermosets. One of the most common techniques in AM are SLS and FFF for thermoplastic materials. The complexity of the processes and the behaviour of the materials in specific environment have a strong influence on the quality, strength and warpage of the obtained structures. The state of the art of the studies indicates that morphology of the material and the crystallization processes influence the aforementioned characteristics of the created components. The knowledge on the crystallization kinetics of polymers is known since many years but it is still developing in order to get an adequate description of the behaviour of the materials in isothermal and non-isothermal conditions. Furthermore, it is needed to predict the warpage of manufactured components based on the virtual AM process in order to decrease the costs. The available tools dedicated for FE analyses allow to increase functionality and implementation of own material models and techniques to perform the customize simulations. Based on the theory and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results it is possible to predict the behaviour of the materials and start working on simulation of the virtual AM process [1-4]. The extracted curves of the velocity of material crystallization in temperature domain with different cooling rate obtained in FE simulations are shown in Fig. 1. The simulated curves are confronted with the DSC experimental results.

crystallization kinetics, Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), polyamide 2200, additive manufacturing, FE analysis