Prepregs, or preliminarily impregnated fibers, are typically reinforcing fabrics pre-impregnated with a resin system (thermoset or thermoplastic). These flexible sheets are laid up in a mold for getting the right shape and require no additional materials, they are commonly used for the manufacturing of advanced composite structures.
Currently, fiber-reinforced polymer composites are mostly made by hand, with only three automated technologies that allow for less human labor: pultrusion, filament winding, and automated fiber placement (AFP) with tape layering (ATL). At Anisoprint, we deal with 3D printing of continuous fiber reinforced composites, and will show you the closest to it — AFP with ATL—that in a way resemble each other.
3D printing is referred to as such because it allows to produce 3 dimensional objects; however, the printing process itself is actually more like 2.5D. What does it mean? The conventional additive manufacturing process consists in laying material on top of each other on a horizontal plane, meaning that the printing head and the nozzle move only in a planar coordinate system building layers for creating a three-dimensional object.
Composite 3D printing is a relatively new trend in additive manufacturing: it is an innovative technology that allows to 3d print parts with enhanced parameters of strength, stiffness, and durability due to fiber component added to plastics.
Here is how fiber can be combined with plastics: filling with chopped fiber or reinforcing with continuous strands. In this material we focus on continuous fiber reinforcement specifically, as chopped fiber does not contribute to the properties equally and does not add to strength as much.
Adopting innovative technologies for your business can be both challenging and exciting. The tremendous benefits sound promising and tempt us to get started without setting clear expectations. This article is a guideline for organizations who want to integrate additive manufacturing into their established production processes. Not every 3D printing technology is equally suitable for every situation. This is why we’ve created a list of 10 criteria to help you explore where AM offers the greatest technological and economical value for your application, prior to making any decisions.
It’s a common problem: Even if you’re away from your printer you still want to track the status of your print job and understand what’s going on. And the more printers you have, the more difficult it becomes to monitor each of them. Ideally, you want to log-in to a system to ensure an optimum utilisation of all your machines.
Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg – March 15, 2022: Anisoprint, a continuous fiber 3D printing systems and software OEM, is introducing Clear PETG and CFC PETG, a second pair of filaments for desktop Anisoprinting. Developed for use with Composer A4 and A3, PETG is one of the most universal and effective materials for composite fiber co-extrusion (CFC). The material is paired with a proprietary profile in Aura slicer library, which guarantees high standard quality and exactly predictable properties.
In additive manufacturing, there are two main ways to use carbon fiber for 3D printing: printing with continuous fiber and chopped fiber. The resulting parts are very different in properties. The added fiber serves as a booster for plastics enhancing their parameters by certain values. Both types of reinforcement have their own characteristics, application areas, and technologies associated with them. We will describe composite materials, the types of carbon fiber reinforcement, the required equipment developed for these materials available on the market, and the applications.
What skill set is required to develop a slicing software for 3D printing? Our Head of Development Natalia Sabinina explains the essentials that you can immediately put into practice to create your own slicer.