PEEK High Performance Fused Deposition Modeling Manufacturing with Laser In-Situ Heat Treatment

Because of the thermal resistance, high mechanical properties, biocompatibility, PEEK have increasingly extended their application in medicals, aircraft, industrial fields and so on. In FDM, a low crystallinity can be got to limit volume contraction to avoid weak interlaminar bonding, which results in the conflict between high interlaminar bonding and crystallinity. In this study, a CO2 laser device was adopted to improve both the interlaminar shear strength and the crystallinity of PEEK part synchronously in FDM. A series of test was then successively implemented. And after the observation and the analysis of the results, an obvious improvement was got that its interlaminar shear strength could improve over 45%, while its crystallinity could improve over double times for PEEK. Additionally, the process suggests a much potential in developing the gradient distribution of the crystallinity or stiffness in multi-function integration manufacturing for PEEK-like semi-crystalline materials.