Research of TPU Materials for 3D Printing Aiming at Non-Pneumatic Tires by FDM Method.

Jun Wang,Bin Yang,Runguo Wang,Xiang Lin,Lei Gao,Yonglai Lu,Tao Liu

doi:10.3390/polym12112492

Abstract

3D printing technology has been widely used in various fields, such as biomedicine, clothing design, and aerospace, due to its personalized customization, rapid prototyping of complex structures, and low cost. However, the application of 3D printing technology in the field of non-pneumatic tires has not been systematically studied. In this study, we evaluated the application of potential thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) materials based on FDM technology in the field of non-pneumatic tires. First, the printing process of TPU material based on fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology was studied through tensile testing and SEM observation. The results show that the optimal 3D printing temperature of the selected TPU material is 210 °C. FDM technology was successfully applied to 3D printed non-pneumatic tires based on TPU material. The study showed that the three-dimensional stiffness of 3D printed non-pneumatic tires is basically 50% of that obtained by simulation. To guarantee the prediction of the performance of 3D printed non-pneumatic tires, we suggest that the performance of these materials should be moderately reduced during the structural design for performance simulation.

Highlights

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) are linear segmented block polymers that are prone to microphase separation due to the thermodynamic incompatibility between polar hard segments and relatively nonpolar soft segments [1,2,3]
During the 3D printing process of fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology, the solid filament material was heated at the nozzle to reach a molten state, and extruded from the nozzle and deposited on the printing platform
For FDM technology, the filament feeding method is to use two driving wheels to provide a traction to the filamentous material, and the filament is transported through a catheter to the nozzle of the 3D printer and heated and melted at the nozzle

Summary

Introduction

Thermoplastic polyurethanes (TPU) are linear segmented block polymers that are prone to microphase separation due to the thermodynamic incompatibility between polar hard segments and relatively nonpolar soft segments [1,2,3]. The hard segments (HS) of TPU are typically derived from diisocyanates and small molecule chain extenders (such as diamines or diols), which endow them with good mechanical strength [4,5], whereas the soft segments (SS) are formed by oligomeric diols and provide them flexibility and elastic behavior [6,7,8]. TPU materials are the desirable material to replace rubber materials for the manufacture of high-performance tires, because of good elasticity and thermoplastic processing [14,15]. The number of waste tires has substantially increased with rapidly growing automobile and transportation development [15,16,17]. The accumulation of waste tires has caused serious environmental

Methods

Results

Conclusion