Materials

& Design
Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594
www.elsevier.com/locate/matdes

Development of new metal/polymer materials for rapid tooling

using Fused deposition modelling
S.H. Masood *, W.Q. Song
Industrial Research Institute Swinburne, Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Melbourne 3122, Australia

Received 2 September 2003; accepted 12 February 2004

Abstract

This paper presents the development of a new metal/polymer composite material for use in fused deposition modelling (FDM)
process with the aim of application to direct rapid tooling. The material consists of iron particles in a nylon type matrix. The detailed
formulation and characterisation of the tensile properties of the various combinations of the new composites are investigated ex-
perimentally. The feedstock filaments of this composite have been produced and used successfully in the unmodified FDM system
for direct rapid tooling of injection moulding inserts. High quality plastic parts have been injection moulded using the inserts. The
work represents a major development in reducing the cost and time in rapid tooling.
Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Fused deposition modelling; Rapid prototyping; Composite material; Tensile strength; Direct rapid tooling; Injection moulding

1. Introduction medical application. New materials for FDM are needed

The fused deposition modelling (FDM) is one of the
most widely used rapid prototyping systems in the
world. The main reasons of its increasing popularity and
use have been its reliability, safe and simple fabrication
process, low cost of material, and the availability of a
variety of building thermoplastics. Ever since the first
FDM system was launched in early 1990s, the Stratasys
Inc has been marketing improved FDM systems on a
regular basis. However, research has also been going on
in universities and research institutions around the
world to increase its applications, to develop new ma-
terials and to improve the FDM process [1].
The FDM systems, developed by Stratasys Inc, cur-
rently fabricate parts in elastomers, ABS and investment
casting wax using the layer by layer deposition of ex-
truded material through a nozzle using feedstock fila-
ments from a spool. Most of the parts fabricated in these
materials can be used for design verification, form and
fit checking and patterns for casting processes and
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +61-3-9214-5050.
E-mail address: smasood@swin.edu.au (S.H. Masood).
to increase its application domain especially in rapid
tooling and rapid manufacturing areas. The basic prin-
ciple of operation of the FDM process offers great po-
tential for a range of other materials including metals
and composites to be developed and used in the FDM
process as long as the new material can be produced in
feed stock filament form of required size, strength and
properties. Development of new FDM materials based
on metals and metal based composites offers a chal-
lenging task because of the specific requirement of feed
stock filament and the FDM process.
Very little effort seems to have been made to develop
metallic materials for the FDM process. Work has been
in progress in some universities and research institutions
to develop new metallic and ceramic materials for rapid
fabrication of functional components by FDM with
higher mechanical properties. Rutgers University in the
United States have carried out considerable work in the
development of fused deposition of ceramics (FDC) and
metals [2,3]. They have used the process to fabricate
functional components of a variety of ceramic and me-
tallic materials such as silicon nitrate, PZT, aluminium
oxide, hydroxypatite and stainless steel for a variety of

0261-3069/$ - see front matter Ó 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.matdes.2004.02.009
588 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594
structural, electroceramic and bioceramic applications
[4]. They create such components on the FDM using
ceramic powders mixed with organic binder system. The
properties of the mixed feedstock filament meet the
flexibility, stiffness, and viscosity required for successful
FDM processing. But the fabricated green parts need to
undergo further processing to remove the organic binder
and are subjected to sintering to achieve densification.
Sintered part may be infiltrated with other type of metal
materials. Work has also been carried out at Advanced
Ceramics Research [5] for part fabrication in ceramics
using the FDM process.
Researchers at Virginia Tech [6] have developed a
new high performance thermoplastic composite for
FDM, involving thermotropic liquid crystalline poly-
mers (TLCP) fibres, and have used it in FDM system to
fabricate prototype parts. The tensile modulus and
strength of this material were approximately four times
those of ABS. Therefore, prototypes fabricated with
these materials would have greater functionality than
those fabricated with ABS.
The FDM technology thus offers the potential to
produce the functional parts with a variety of materials
including composite materials. But little work seems to
have been done in the development of metal/polymer
composites for direct rapid tooling application using the
FDM system. Direct rapid tooling of injection moulding
dies and inserts can be conveniently performed if a
strong metal based feedstock material is available for
the FDM rapid prototyping systems.
This paper presents the development of a new metal-
based composite material for FDM process carried out
at Swinburne University of Technology with the aim of
application to direct rapid tooling of injection moulded
dies and inserts. The research focuses on developing a
proper formulation and mixture of constituent materials
for obtaining certain properties of the composite mate-
rial so that they can be produced in filament form for
use in the FDM process. The success of this unique
work depends upon careful selection of proportion of
constituent materials and fillers to result in the desired
properties of the composite material. The main outcome
of this major breakthrough is the manufacture of a
strong, flexible and spoolable feed stock filament made
by extrusion from this composite material for use in the
existing FDM system without any hardware or software
modification.
In this investigation, two main types of constituent
materials are used to develop the new composite mate-
rial. The first material, used as the matrix, is the P301
polyamide thermoplastic. This nylon type material has a
lower melting temperature, desirable flexibility and
stiffness, which are required for successful FDM pro-
cessing. The other constituent material is a commercial
grade iron powder, which has properties of high
strength, toughness and conductivity. The iron powder
is mixed with the nylon binder material to form the
composite, which is then used to make the feedstock
material. This composite material to be used in the
FDM should have appropriate flow, stiffness, flexibility
and conductivity properties. The other critical proper-
ties required for high quality composite feedstock fila-
ments for FDM include desired viscosity, strength and
modulus. In addition to forming the part with the layers
deposited, the filament also acts as a piston at the en-
trance of the liquefier head in FDM machine, forcing the
molten material out of the nozzle. If the filament ex-
hibits a low stiffness or high viscosity, buckling will
occur just before the entrance to the liquefier, thus
making FDM processing impossible. Filaments require
a high stiffness and lower melt viscosity to a useable
level. Due to the high iron powder loading in the nylon
matrix, the viscosity of the composite is increased and
dispersion gets worse. Therefore additives, such as
surfactants and plasticisers are necessary to this com-
posite material formulation. The requirement of this
combination of properties makes the development of a
working filament a challenging task, particularly for
highly loaded systems.
2. Preparation of metal–polymer composite
In the development of the new metal–polymer
composite, an iron/nylon mixture consisting of iron
metal particles in P301 nylon matrix was selected with
the aim of fabrication of appropriate feed stock fila-
ment material for FDM processing. The main reasons
for selecting the iron metal for the composite were its
reasonably good mechanical and thermal properties
and its capabilities of mixing and surface binding with
polymers. Moreover, iron metal powder is less ex-
pensive and easily available compared to other metals.
Only two different particle sizes of iron, coarse and
fine, were used in this study because the objective was
to determine the general effect of particle size on
composite material properties. Hence, three samples of
the composite materials were found to be sufficient to
carry out the minimum amount of experimental in-
vestigation necessary to determine an acceptable mix
for rapid tooling applications. The detail of the three
samples of the composite material with varying iron
content and particle size, as used in the present work,
are shown in Table 1.
Each of the three samples of composite materials
consists of iron particles of a given volume and a specific
particle size mixed in the matrix of nylon (P301) mate-
rial. As shown in Table 1, the first sample consists of
70% nylon and 30% iron by volume with particle size of
50–80 lm. The second sample consists of 60% nylon and
40% iron with particle size of 50–80 lm. The third
sample consists of 60% nylon and 40% iron with particle
 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594 589

Table 1
Constituents of new iron/polymer composites
Sample no. Iron particle size (lm) By volume (%) By weight (%)
Nylon Iron Nylon Iron Surfactant/plasticiser
1 50–80 (coarse) 70 30 23.10 70.91 6
2 50–80 (coarse) 60 40 15.95 76.15 7.9
3 <30 (fine) 60 40 15.95 76.15 7.9

size less than 30 lm. The nylon used was of P301 type as
used by the Stratasys Inc in their FDM systems. The
iron powder was obtained from a local supply (Sigma–
Aldrich) in Australia. The specific gravity of nylon was
1.1 gm/cm3 and the specific gravity of iron was 7.88 gm/
cm3 .
The liquid nitrogen was used during grinding of
nylon material to fine powder using a SORVALL
OMNI, high speed, mixing machine, which was op-
erated at sub-zero temperatures. This processing is
called cryogenic grinding. The nylon pellets are frozen
with liquid nitrogen and, it may reduce the molecule
energy of nylon and cured chains of molecule. The
chains are easy broken below the glass-transition
temperature. Therefore this process does not damage
or alter the chemical composition of material in any
way. It is a very efficient technique for polymer
powder production.
In order to achieve a homogeneous mix when mixed
with iron powder, the nylon was ground to a particle
size of approximately 200–500 lm. The nylon and iron
powder were mixed at various volumetric concentra-
tions, then placed in a tumble mixer for 2 h.
The weight of the composite material corresponding
to various compositions of iron and nylon can be cal-
culated from the following relationship:
WFe þ WNylon
Wc ¼ 
 ;
1
Wp % þ Ws %
surfaces of iron fillers. The coated iron particles can
give good link to lower free energy surfaces of poly-
mer particles. The mixture of the composite material
was then dried in a vacuum oven for about 12 h at
65 °C, which prepared it for subsequent extrusion
processing.
In order to create a part on the FDM system using
the new composite material, a certain amount of this
composite material is required to create the filaments for
the FDM machine. This amount of required composite
material must have exact amount of its constituent ele-
ments, which include nylon, iron, surfactant and plas-
ticiser. The amount of each of these elements will
depend upon the volume of the filaments required for
the FDM processing. This in turn will depend upon the
volume of the material of the part used in the CAD
model. The determination of the exact amount of con-
stituents can be made either by considering the CAD
model volume only or by considering the length of fil-
ament determined by the Quickslice software of the
FDM system. Fig. 1 shows the variation of the amount
of various constituents required for different volume of
the part materials for the 70/30(nylon/iron) composite.
100
ð1Þ 90
Weight of Constituents (g)

80
where Wc : weight of the composite material in grams; 70
WFe : weight of the iron powder in grams; WNylon : weight Fe
60
of the nylon powder in grams; Wp : weight percentage of 50
plasticiser; Ws : weight percentage of surfactant.
40 Nylon
In the mixture, a very small percentage by weight of a
plasticiser and a surfactant material were added to im- 30

prove the flow, dispersion and toughness properties of 20 Plasticiser

Surfactant
the composite. The function of the plasticiser was to act 10
as a lubricant in reducing intermolecular ‘friction’ be- 0
tween the polymer molecules. When a plastic specimen 5 10 20 40
is flexed, the polymer molecules must slide backwards Volume of Part Material (cm3)
and forwards over each other. Intermolecular attrac-
Weight of Fe in Composite Material
tions will impede such movements and the plasticiser
Weight of Nylon in Composite Material
reduces the internal resistance by a lubricating action.
Weight of Plasticiser in Composite Material
The function of the surfactant was to increase the Weight of Surfactant in composite Material
homogenous dispersion of iron particles in polymer
matrix. The surfactant powder is coated on the iron Fig. 1. Relative constituent elements as a function of volume of part
particles, which lead to reduce the high free energy material (70%/30% nylon/iron).
590 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594
140
120
Weight of Constituents (g)
100
80
60
N ylon
40
P lasticiser
20
0 the composite melt. The extruding filament exiting the
0 10 20 30
Volume of Part Material (cm3)
Weight of Fe in Composite Material
Weight of Nylon in Composite Material
Weight of Plasticiser in Composite Material
Weight of surfactant in Composite Material
Fig. 2. Relative constituent elements as a function of volume of part
material (60%/40% nylon/iron).
Fig. 2 shows the variation for the 60/40% (nylon/iron)
composite. These figures provide guidelines for the rel-
ative amount of constituent materials required for a
given volume of parts to be fabricated on the FDM
system.
3. Fabrication of filament for FDM processing
The filaments used in FDM process need to be of
specific size, strength and properties. A single-screw
extruder machine was used to produce such filaments.
The single screw extruder is one of the most important
types of extruders used in the polymer processing in-
dustry. Its key advantages include its relatively lower
cost, simple design, ruggedness, reliability, and accept-
able performance [7].
A Brabender Plasti-Corder single screw extruder was
selected to fabricate the filaments from the composite
material. The composite mixture powder is fed into the
feed hopper. The mixture powder material flows by
gravity from the feed hopper down into the extruder
barrel. As the material flows, it fills the annular space
between the extruder screw and barrel. Since the barrel
is stationary and the screw is rotating, the frictional
forces will act on the material, both on the barrel as well
as on the screw surface. As the material moves forward,
it will heat up as result of frictional heat generated and
conducted from the barrel heaters.
When the temperature of the nylon material exceeds
the melting point, a thin film of composite material,
which is a compounded nylon and iron, will form at the
barrel surface. This is where the plasticising action
starts. As the composite material moves forward, the
amount of solid material at each location will reduce as
Fe
a result of melting. When the entire solid composite has
disappeared, and the end of the plasticising zone has
been reached then the melt-conveying zone starts. In the
melt-conveying zone, the composite material is simply
pumped to the die. Since the die exerts a resistance to
flow, a pressure is required to force the material through
the die. This is referred to as the diehead pressure. The
diehead pressure is determined by the shape of the die,
temperature of the composite material melt, the flow
S urfactant
rate through the die, and the rheological properties of
40 50
die is then carried away by a conveyor belt, whose speed
matches the output flow rate.
During extrusion, a phenomenon, sometimes referred
to as die swell, occurs. Actually, it is not the die but the
polymer that swells. The elastic behaviour of the poly-
mer melt is largely responsible for the swelling of the
extrudate upon leaving the die. This is primarily due to
the elastic recovery of the deformation of the metal–
polymer composite in the die. A die with a short land
length will cause a large amount of swelling, while a die
with long land length will reduce the amount of swelling.
Therefore, the land length of die was increased from 5 to
10 mm, which leads to decrease the extrudate swelling.
Because of swelling, the diameter of die used was taken
to be smaller than the required diameter of the filament.
The die diameter was 1.65 mm and the resulting diam-
eter of filament formed was in the range of 1.78–1.85
mm due to the extrudate swelling. Therefore, the ge-
ometry of exit flow channel is generally different from
the required product geometry. Thus using the proper
geometry of the die and appropriate volume of flow
parameters, flexible winding filaments of desired diam-
eter and tolerance were produced. Fig. 3 shows the final
filament produced by this process, ready for use in the
FDM machine.
Fig. 3. FDM filament produced from the iron–nylon composite
material.
 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594 591

4. Tensile properties

The quality of feed stock filaments is critical to the

proper fabrication of FDM components. Successful
processing of composites in FDM starts with fabrication
of filaments with a uniform particle dispersion, pos-
sessing certain mechanical properties, rheology and ad-
hesion behaviour. When the volume fraction of metal
particles and the size of the particles in the polymer
matrix are varied, the tensile stress, tensile modulus, and
elongation of the metal composites are affected [8].
From microscopic studies, it has been noticed that there
is no strong bond adhesion between the filler particles
and the polymer matrix. This may be due to cracks or
voids forming around the filler particles in composite.
The specimens of the filament were tensile-tested in
an Intron testing machine, corresponding series IX
Automated Materials Testing System 1.26. The testing
was carried out using a standard string test with a string
clamp. All the tests were performed with a crosshead
movement of 20 mm/min. Four specimens were tested in
each case. Table 2 shows the results of tensile modulus, Fig. 4. Comparison of stress–strain curves for different iron–nylon
composite materials.
tensile stress at peak and tensile strain at break for each
of three samples of iron/nylon composite filaments. The
values shown are the average values obtained from four comes a three-phase composite, consisting of polymer
tests in each case. phase, bonded particles, and pseudovoids. Since the
Fig. 4 shows the stress–strain curves of iron/nylon pseudovoids no longer support the applied tensile force,
composites with different volume fraction and particles they cause the modulus of the composite to decrease. At
size of iron. In this case, the stress is defined as the approximately 60% of tensile stress for specimens 1 and
tensile load divided by the cross-section of the filament 2, the slope begins to decrease quickly until fracture. The
and strain is defined as the fractional change in the slope of specimen 3 is flatter than those of specimens 1
length of the filament. and 2 at approximately 80% of tensile stress.
In Fig. 4, the initial linear portion of the stress–strain For specimens 1 and 2, Fig. 4 also shows the variation
curves close to the origin represents the elastic elonga- of the modulus of elasticity (as the slope of the linear
tion of composites. During initial stress, the iron parti- portion) and the tensile stress for composites of different
cles were bonded by compression by the nylon matrix volume fractions of iron content. The experimental re-
due to large difference in thermal expansion coefficients sults show that higher volume fraction of composite
(kFe  11:7  10
6 /°C, kp  100  10
6 /°C). For the represents lower modulus and tensile stress at volume
case where kFe < kp , the hemispherical cracks and fraction greater than 0.30. When the volume fraction of
fracture paths are formed around the particles, which iron particle is increased, the decrease in fracture energy
affect the strength and the modulus of the composite. occurs. This is explained as being caused by an ineffec-
Once the applied stress overcomes the residual com- tive interaction when the particles become closely
pressive stress, the nylon matrix surface normal to the spaced. The composite appeared as a continuum and the
applied tensile force separates from the iron particle crack front did not interact with the discrete particles.
surface to form a pseudovoid. The stress, at which the Another possible reason is that the crack precursors are
pseudovoids are formed, depends on both the degree of increased with increasing fraction of particles. Each
the interfacial bond and the magnitude of the com- particle of the dispersed phase can be considered as a
pressive stress. Once they are formed, the material be- crack precursor during stressing. The incorporation of

Table 2
Tensile properties of iron/nylon filaments
Specimen no. Constituents (by volume)  (Mpa)
Tensile modulus E Tensile stress at peak r
 (MPa) Tensile strain at break e (%)
1 30% Fe (coarse) 70% nylon 54.52 3.87 16.82
2 40% Fe (coarse) 60% nylon 42.23 2.76 12.94
3 40% Fe (fine) 60% nylon 37.18 2.44 74.61
592 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594

voids, which is unavoidable in fabrication of compos-

ites, and cracks formed during stressing, lower the
modulus and the stress level. Also the bond between the
iron particles is not as strong as that between the nylon
matrix and iron particles. This may be due to voids
formed with the application of tensile load. The tensile
load cannot properly transfer stress thus lowering the
values of mechanical properties of composite material.
Fig. 4 also indicates that the variation of the modu-
lus of elasticity and tensile strength and tensile elonga-
tion of composites are strongly dependent on the
varying size of metal particles. Specimens 1 and 2 show
higher modulus and tensile strength in comparison to Fig. 5. Examples of parts and inserts produced on the FDM system.
specimen 3, which has smaller particle size composite.
Higher tensile elongation of composite is observed for
specimen 3. The larger particle-size dispersion results in
larger fracture energies, which increases the modulus
and tensile strength of composite. When the particle size
increases, the crack precursors also increase in size,
which affects the lower elongation of the composites
(e.g. specimens 1 and 2) at break. Smaller particles can
exhibit perfect adhesion with the matrix when stress is
applied. Larger particles on the other hand exhibit
weaker bonding and larger crack voids when stress is
applied. Thus, smaller particle size of the composite
represents larger tensile elongation at break (e.g. speci-
men 3 in Fig. 4). The smaller particle size of composites
yields good deformation properties.
Fig. 6. A complex shaped injection moulding insert produced on
FDM.

5. Application to rapid tooling

For experimental investigation, injection moulding
The iron/nylon feedstock filaments made from the inserts consisting of cylindrical shaped cavity were built
new composite material were loaded into spool of the on the FDM machine using the same iron/nylon fila-
FDM machine and were fed into the liquefier head for ment. For making the insert on the FDM machine, a
part fabrication. The FDM liquefier head and the FDM slice thickness of 0.3 mm, a road width of 0.76 mm, a
Quickslice software were used without any modification. nozzle diameter of 1.2 mm and raster/contour fill pat-
In the initial stages of FDM processing, there were a few tern were used. The cylindrical cavities in the inserts
problems related to filament size variation, over filling were of depth 5.5–6.4 mm with a diameter of 23 mm. It
with material, clogging of the nozzle and delamination was given a small draft for easy part removal and the
of a few layers due to presence of plasticiser. All of these assembly was fitted with an ejector pin. Fig. 7 shows the
problems were overcome by making more uniform fil- FDM insert fitted in an injection moulding die.
aments, regulating the amount of plasticiser, and se-
lecting appropriate values of slice thickness, road width,
fill patterns and nozzle diameter. In the initial trials, the
build time of a part built with this new composite was
almost twice of the time taken in building the same part
with the P301 nylon material used in the FDM machine.
But with improved filament characteristics and opti-
mised process parameters, the build time was down to
almost the same as that taken to build an equivalent part
in P301 material. Fig. 5 shows a few parts and inserts
built directly on the FDM machine using the iron/nylon
filament. Fig. 6 shows a more complex injection
moulding insert produced by FDM using the iron/nylon
filament. Fig. 7. Injection moulding insert of iron/nylon composite fitted in a die.
 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594 593

6. Injection moulding using the FDM tool inserts LDPE material

5.65

Thickness of injection
The FDM insert fitted die was used in an injection
5.6
machine to produce parts in different thermoplastic

part (mm)
materials. Two thermoplastic materials were tried for 5.55
injection moulding parts: the low density polyethylene 5.5
(LDPE), and the ABS. 5.45
With LDPE, 70 parts were successfully produced. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
The injection pressure was set at 0.69 MPa, the injection Shot number
temperature was 170 °C, and the cycle time was only 26
s for each piece. After making 50 parts, there was slight Fig. 9. Thickness variation for LDPE parts directly injection-moulded
using the FDM-produced insert.
delamination on the edges of the cylindrical cavity, re-
sulting in slight deformation of the part on the edges.
Delamination increased with higher number of shots. ABS material
With ABS, which requires a higher processing tem- 6. 55
perature, 40 parts were successfully produced. The in- 6. 5

injection part
Thickness of
jection pressure was set at 2.62 MPa, the injection
6. 45
temperature was 240 °C, and the cycle time was only 35

s. After making 25 parts, there was slight delamination
found on the edges of the cylindrical cavity as in case of
LDPE. Fig. 8 shows a sample of LDPE and ABS parts
(with runners) injection moulded using the FDM made
iron/nylon insert.
It is observed that FDM produced inserts made of
iron/nylon composite use much less cycle time and in-
jection pressure when compared to the cycle times and
injection pressures used by Direct AIM inserts produced
by the SLA process [9]. The FDM produced inserts re-
quired only 35 s of cycle time with an injection pressure
of 2.62 MPa for the ABS parts, while the direct ACES
injection moulding (AIM) inserts required 5 min of cycle
time and an injection pressure of 22 MPa for the ABS
parts of similar dimensions. Similar observations occur
in case of parts injected in LDPE plastics.
Measurements of thickness and diameter of each in-
jection moulded part were carried out after each shot in
order to observe the dimensional repeatability. Figs. 9
and 10 show the repeatability of thickness values for
LDPE and ABS parts respectively. For LDPE parts,
measurements were taken for first 36 shots taken on the
same day and for ABS parts, measurements were taken
(mm)
6. 4
6. 35
6. 3
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40
Shot number
Fig. 10. Thickness variation for ABS parts directly injection-moulded
using the FDM-produced insert.
for the first 33 shots taken on another day. It was found
that for LDPE parts, 99% of the measurements were
within ±0.076 mm of the mean value, and 72% of the
parts were within ±0.05 mm. This is quite favourable
considering the fact that the generally accepted range of
dimensional variance for production injection moulded
parts is ±0.05 mm.
For the parts injected in ABS, the repeatability results
were even better. It was found that 91% of the measure-
ments of the ABS parts were within ±0.05 mm of the mean
value, and 99% of the measurements are within ±0.076
mm range. This is also quite acceptable when considering
the generally accepted range of dimensional variance for
the injection moulded parts. Similar results were obtained
for the dimensional repeatability of diameter values.

7. Conclusions

A new metal/polymer composite material has been

Fig. 8. ABS (left two) and LDPE (right two) parts produced on in-
jection moulding machine using FDM made inserts.
successfully produced and tested for direct rapid tooling
application using the FDM rapid prototyping process.
Characterisation of this new material displays desirable
mechanical properties, offering fabrication of flexible
feedstock filaments for producing functional parts and
tooling directly on the FDM system. These properties
can help to establish the upper limits for the process-
ability of filament of composites in terms of the particle
size and the volume fraction of filler content.
594 S.H. Masood, W.Q. Song / Materials and Design 25 (2004) 587–594
Composites consisting of large filler particles and
higher volume fraction exhibit lower tensile modulus,
tensile stress and elongation, but only when the particles
in the composite material were of the uniform size.
When comparing composites made of large size filler
particles with the composites composed of small size
filler particles at the same filler volume content, it was
observed that the composite with larger particle size
exhibit greater tensile modulus and stress than the
composite with smaller particle size. The composite with
smaller particle size exhibit significant tensile elongation.
Application of this new composite material in rapid
tooling using the FDM system has shown that good
quality parts and injection moulding tool inserts could
be produced successfully. The material is especially
suitable for direct rapid tooling application. In this
work, no binder burnout or infiltration is required,
saving a great deal of time in rapid tooling development.
Test results of injection moulding inserts of this material
fabricated on FDM system have proven acceptable
quality of injection moulded parts in various thermo-
plastics. Future work will include further refinement of
this rapid tooling process in terms of better quality and
accuracy of FDM produced inserts, optimisation of
process parameters, increasing the tool life, and im-
proving the quality of injection moulded parts.
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