Additive Manufacturing of High Performance Semicrystalline Thermoplastics and Their Composites

This work investigates the use of two semi-crystalline high performance thermoplastics, polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) and poly (ether ketone ketone) (PEKK), as feedstock for fused filament fabrication process. Composites of PPS and PEKK are emerging as viable candidates for several components in aerospace and tooling industries and additive manufacturing of these materials can be extremely beneficial to lower manufacturing costs and lead times. However, these materials pose several challenges for extrusion and deposition due to some of their inherent properties as well as thermal and oxidative responses. To better understand the properties of such systems specific to 3D printing and determine the critical parameters that make them “printable”, various rheological and thermal properties have been studied for neat as well as short fiber reinforced PPS and PEKK systems. Attempts were also made to print these materials in a customized high temperature fused filament fabrication system.