Abstract
Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a well-known and greatly accessible additive manufacturing technology, that has found great use in the prototyping and manufacture of radiofrequency componentry, by using a range of composite thermoplastic materials that possess superior properties, when compared to standard materials for 3D printing. However, due to their nature and synthesis, they are often a great challenge to print successfully which in turn affects their microwave properties. Hence, determining the optimum printing strategy and settings is important to advance this area. The manufacturing study presented in this paper shows the impact of the main process parameters: printing speed, hatch spacing, layer height and material infill, during 3D printing on the relative permittivity (εr), and loss tangent (tanδ) of the resultant additively manufactured test samples. A combination of process parameters arising from this study, allowed successful 3D printing of test samples, that marked a relative permittivity of 9.06 ± 0.09 and dielectric loss of 0.032 ± 0.003.
Highlights
For more than two decades, polymers and their functional composites have received great attention due to their potential to be used in a variety of applications in electronics, such as piezo-resistive/electric devices, conductors, etc. [1]
We present a manufacturing study, using a high permittivity polymer composite filament for Fused filament fabrication (FFF)-type additive manufacturing
The material was initially subjected to thermal analysis using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to identify its thermal behaviour and extract information critical for the successful manufacture of three-dimensional test samples
Summary
For more than two decades, polymers and their functional composites have received great attention due to their potential to be used in a variety of applications in electronics, such as piezo-resistive/electric devices, conductors, etc. [1]. Polymers are typically materials of low relative permittivity or dielectric constant (εr , where in order to increase their dielectric performance they are infilled with a high dielectric constant ceramic material (e.g., BaTiO3 ), in either a micro or nanoparticulate size, to form a polymer composite [2]. Such high dielectric performance polymer composites are of great use in the fabrication of electronic components and lately, they have attracted real interest, for their potential to be integrated into modern radio-frequency (RF) devices operating at microwave frequencies [3].
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