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Fused filament fabrication of polymer composites for extreme environments

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Abstract

Vast improvements have been made to the capabilities of advanced manufacturing (AM), yet there are still limitations on which materials can effectively be used in the technology. To this end, parts created using AM would benefit from the ability to be developed from feedstock materials incorporating additional functionality. A common three-dimensional (3D) printing polymer, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, was combined with bismuth and polyvinylidene fluoride via a solvent treatment to fabricate multifunctional composite materials for AM. Composites of varying weight percent loadings were extruded into filaments, which were subsequently 3D printed into blocks via fused filament fabrication. Investigating the material properties demonstrated that in addition to the printed blocks successfully performing as radiation shields, the chemical, thermal, and mechanical properties are suitable for AM. Thus, this work demonstrates that it is possible to enhance AM components with augmented capabilities while not significantly altering the material properties which make AM possible.

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Acknowledgements

This work was performed under the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Contract No. DE-AC52-06NA25396. This research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. USAXS/SAXS data were collected on the 9-ID-C beamline at the APS, Argonne National Laboratory under General User Proposal number 64333. The authors thank Adam Pacheco for his technical support during this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Los Alamos National Laboratory, 87545, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA

    Zachary Brounstein, Samantha Talley, Joseph H. Dumont, Jianchao Zhao, Kwan-Soo Lee & Andrea Labouriau

  2. Department of Nanoscience and Microsystems Engineering, University of New Mexico, 87185, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA

    Zachary Brounstein

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  1. Zachary Brounstein
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Correspondence to Andrea Labouriau.

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Brounstein, Z., Talley, S., Dumont, J.H. et al. Fused filament fabrication of polymer composites for extreme environments. Journal of Materials Research 35, 1493–1503 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2020.118

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