3D Printing of Continuous Wire Polymer Composite for Mechanical and Thermal Applications

Recently, continuous fiber reinforcement has been combined with 3D printing techniques such as fused filament fabrication to create stronger and stiffer printed composite components. The continuous nature of the reinforcing material can improve both mechanical and thermal properties of the polymeric material significantly. However, several parameters can affect the printed composite properties such as filler volume fraction, type of polymer matrix and filler treatment. The work presented in this study addresses the effect of reinforcing polymers with continuous metal wire on the composites properties and the potential applications for these composites. In the first part of this study we presented a novel 3D printing technique in which metal wires were combined with polymer matrixes in order to improve both mechanical and thermal properties of the printed components. In the second part, we investigated the tensile and bending properties of the continuous wire polymer composites which was superior compared to the base polymer. In addition, we studied the effect of introducing continuous wires to the polymer matrix on the effective thermal conductivity which was found to increase significantly. In addition, we investigated the use of the fabricated composites as a novel fabrication technique for low-temperature heating elements and explored this technology for de-icing and anti-icing applications.