Parameter settings of the PEEK and PPSU filaments production with the ceramic component

Abstract

Abstract. The aim of the work is to determine suitable settings of filament production parameters for medical applications from materials PEEK and PPSU alone, as well as with a 10wt% of the ceramic components Hydroxyapatite (HA) and Tricalcium Phosphate (TCP) admixture. Filaments were made using the Filament Maker machine (3devo, The Netherlands). The filaments were manufactured according to the requirements for usage in the FDM technology with a nominal diameter of 1.75 mm. The diameter of the filaments was measured with an optical sensor and analyzed using DevoVision software (3devo, The Netherlands). The analysis of the filament diameters was carried out using descriptive statistics in order to determine quality of the filaments. The analysis of the produced filament diameter from the materials PEEK, PEEK + HA/ TCP , PPSU and PPSU + HA/ TCP demonstrated that the measured values of the diameters of the filaments from the nominal value (1.75 mm) showed minimal deviations, as well as the fact that the limit values were not exceeded (1.85 mm; 1.65 mm) and thus it is possible to state that the manufactured filaments meet the required quality for use in FDM technology. A microscopic analysis was also carried out on the manufactured filaments in order to determine the distribution of the ceramic component in the manufactured filaments. An Olympus GX71 inverted metallographic microscope with an Olympus DP12 camera was used for the purpose of expertise. The total number of examined samples was n = 40, while 10 samples from each filament were selected from random areas. Microscopic analysis of the produced filaments showed a uniform distribution of the ceramic component in the composite filaments, which means that the manufacturing process does not affect the distribution of the ceramic component in the filament.