Additive manufacturing of multifunctional reactive materials

This paper demonstrates the ability to 3D print a fluoropolymer based energetic material which could be used as part of a multifunctional reactive structure. The work presented lays the technical foundation for the 3D printing of reactive materials using fusion based material extrusion. A reactive filament comprising of a polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) binder with 20% mass loading of aluminum (Al) was prepared using a commercial filament extruder and printed using a Makerbot Replicator 2X. Printing performance of the energetic samples was compared with standard 3D printing materials, with metrics including the bead-to-bead adhesion and surface quality of the printed samples. The reactivity and burning rates of the filaments and the printed samples were comparable. Differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetric analysis showed that the onset temperature for the reactions was above 350 °C, which is well above the operation temperature of both the filament extruder and the fused deposition printer.