Abstract
Searching for high-performance permanent magnets components with no limitation in shape and dimensions is highly desired to overcome the present design and manufacturing restrictions, which affect the efficiency of the final devices in energy, automotive and aerospace sectors. Advanced 3D-printing of composite materials and related technologies is an incipient route to achieve functional structures avoiding the limitations of traditional manufacturing. Gas-atomized MnAlC particles combined with polymer have been used in this work for fabricating scalable rare earth-free permanent magnet composites and extruded flexible filaments with continuous length exceeding 10 m. Solution casting has been used to synthesize homogeneous composites with tuned particles content, made of a polyethylene (PE) matrix embedding quasi-spherical particles of the ferromagnetic τ-MnAlC phase. A maximum filling factor of 86.5 and 72.3% has been obtained for the composite and the filament after extrusion, respectively. The magnetic measurements reveal no deterioration of the properties of the MnAlC particles after the composite synthesis and filament extrusion. The produced MnAlC/PE materials will serve as precursors for an efficient and scalable design and fabrication of end-products by different processing techniques (polymerized cold-compacted magnets and 3D-printing, respectively) in view of technological applications (from micro electromechanical systems to energy and transport applications).
Highlights
Nowadays, the fabrication of composite materials is attracting much interest due to the possibility of obtaining functional structures by polymerization [1] and advanced 3D-printing [2,3] for applications in novel microelectromechanical systems (MEMS), medicine, electronics, automotive, aeronautics and energy industries [1,4,5,6,7,8]
We report the synthesis process of a composite material formed by MnAlC magnetic particles embedded into a polyethylene polymer matrix with a high filling factor with the aim of fabricate extruded magnetic filament to be used in advanced technologies for permanent magnets (PM) fabrication, such as cold-compaction and 3D-printing
Composite materials made of MnAlC particles embedded into a PE, (C2H4)n, matrix were synthesized by solution casting method [22,25], being both starting materials in powder-state (Figure 2(a))
Summary
The relatively low PE melting point (115–135 °C), in comparison with other polymers (e.g. polyamides, polymeric material frequently used for industrial applications, which melting point is over 200 °C [24]) makes it an interesting polymer to be combined with magnetic powders considering a reduced processing temperature, i.e. a lower related cost in view of industrial implementation. This temperature is sufficiently high to result in PM composites with potential use in a broad range of high-tech applications in energy and transport sectors (sensing devices, actuators, acoustic transducers, fly-wheels...). The possibility of tailoring the morphology and the magnetic properties of the composite materials and magnetic filament is studied by tuning its filling factor, indicative of the mass of magnetic material into the composites and filaments
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