Development of in-house composite wire based feed stock filaments of fused deposition modelling for wear-resistant materials and structures

In the recent past many researchers have highlighted the development of in-house filament for fused deposition modelling (FDM) in order to enhance the application domain of the process. But hither to no work has been reported on the manufacturing of wear-resistant materials and structures with hybrid feed stock filament (comprising of Nylon matrix and Al2O3 powder) from process capability point of view. The Al2O3 powder as reinforcement in Nylon-6 matrix has been, e.g., used as rapid tooling in grinding applications for dentistry. The study started with establishing a melt flow index (MFI) of the polymer matrix composite (PMC) to be used as FDM filament. Further an effort has been made to establish the selected proportions of filler, matrix (Nylon-6) and extrusion load on the MFI of reinforced FDM filament as per ASTM-D1238-95 standard. The results of study suggest that FDM process with hybrid filament lies in ±4.5sigma (σ) limit as regard to wear of rapid tooling (grinding wheel selected as a case study) is concerned. This process ensures rapid production of pre-series technological prototypes and proof of concept at less production cost and time.