Development of a Large-scale Continuous Carbon Fiber Composite Additive Manufacturing System Based on Fused Granular Fabrication

• Author / Creator

  Philip, Anish Abraham

• The thesis details the design and development of a method to additively manufacture continuous carbon fiber in a polyether ether ketone (PEEK) polymer matrix at a large scale. The majority of the additive manufacturing techniques are limited by size and printing time. Furthermore, the mechanical characteristics of typically 3D printed polymers are often inadequate for use in industrial settings. The prevalent technique in polymer additive manufacturing is fused filament fabrication, which necessitates the production of polymer filaments. This raises the cost of raw materials and confines the process to conventional filament dimensions. Considering these shortcomings, the study aims to investigate fused granular fabrication (FGF) based 3D printing which uses polymer in pellet form. A three-axis cartesian gantry based FGF printing system with a screw-based pellet extruder was constructed for studying the process parameters that influence the printing of a performance polymer. For this study, PEEK, an engineering thermoplastic frequently used in the aerospace and medical industry, was used. Employing a design of experiments approach, a study was conducted on printing temperature, bead overlap, layer height, and material throughput rate to obtain the optimal parameters to print parts with near zero porosity and minimal surface deformities. Tensile test was conducted on parts printed with the optimal set of parameters and compared with other manufacturing processes. During the study a variety of challenges involved with 3D printing high performance thermoplastics were resolved, such as issues with delamination, warping, and poor bed adhesion. For the second half of the thesis, a novel nozzle was designed with the capability of 3D printing in-situ impregnated continuous carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CCFRP). Parametric computational fluid dynamics analysis was performed on the design to optimize the temperature distribution and flow behavior of PEEK polymer through the nozzle. In order to utilize the benefits of printing CCFRP by employing nonplanar printing path, a six-axis robotic arm based FGF printer and components were constructed. A newly fabricated nozzle was implemented along with the screw-based pellet extruder on the robotic system and PEEK-CCFRP was printed as a proof of concept.

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Additive manufacturing
  • PEEK
  • Large scale
  • CFRP 3D printing
  • 3D printing

• Graduation date

  Spring 2024

• Type of Item

  Thesis

• Degree

  Master of Science

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-92ev-r111

• License

  This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.