Reducing part deformation of isotactic polypropylene specimens fabricated with powder bed fusion technique through controlling crystallization behaviors

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

Authors

  • Xia Gao
  • Junqiang Guo
  • Daijun Zhang
  • Jing Li
  • Yunlan Su
  • Huayi Li

External Organisational units

  • Southwest Jiaotong University
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chongqing

Abstract

Serious shrinkage and warpage are obstacles to the development of ideal isotactic polypropylene (iPP) materials for polymer-based powder bed fusion (PBF) technique. In this work, the variations of the dimensional accuracy of the PBF-printed iPP parts were investigated with various printing parameter and nucleating agent. The iPP parts printed at a scanning speed of 700 mm/s exhibit smaller extents of shrinkage and curling than those at lower speeds, due to a lower degree of crystallinity. Interestingly, iPP blended with the α- or β-nucleating agent demonstrates more serious part deformation with respect to neat iPP. Especially, α-nucleating agent tends to trigger the most severe curling under the investigated printing parameters. Based on X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results, both neat iPP and α-iPP parts crystallize into α-crystal, while β-iPP parts display the coexistence of β- and α-crystals. And, the difference of the crystallinity is less than 3% in three specimens. This suggests that both crystallinity and crystalline structure are not the main reasons for the shrinkage and warpage in this case. Instead, the severe part deformation of the α-iPP parts is assigned to the narrower sintering window as well as the higher onset crystallization temperature of α-iPP, which hinder relaxation of residual stresses. This work provides insights into the part deformation mechanism for PBF-processed polymer materials.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3025-3037
Number of pages13
Journal Journal of polymer science
Volume62.2024
Issue number13
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 24 Apr 2024