Extrusion-Based Additively Manufactured PAEK and PAEK/CF Polymer Composites Performance: Role of Process Parameters on Strength, Toughness and Deflection at Failure

Abstract

Poly aryl-ether-ketone (PAEK) belongs to a family of high-performance semicrystalline polymers exhibiting outstanding material properties at high temperatures, making them suitable candidates for metallic part replacement in different industries such as aviation, oil and gas, chemical, and biomedical. Fused filament fabrication is an additive manufacturing (AM) method that can be used to produce intricate PAEK and PAEK composite parts and to tailor their mechanical properties such as stiffness, strength and deflection at failure. In this work, we present a methodology to identify the layer design and process parameters that will have the highest potential to affect the mechanical properties of additively manufactured parts, using our previously developed multiscale modeling framework. Five samples for each of the ten identified process conditions were fabricated using a Roboze-Argo 500 version 2 with heated chamber and dual extruder nozzle. The manufactured PAEK and PAEK/carbon fiber samples were tested until failure in an Instron, using a video extensometer system. Each sample was prepared with a speckle pattern for post analysis using digital image correlation (DIC) to measure the strain and displacement over its entire surface. The raster angle and the presence of fibers had the largest influence on the mechanical properties of the AM manufactured parts, and the resulting properties were comparable to the mechanical properties of injection molded parts.