Thermal modeling of material deposition in melt extrusion 3D printing of fiber reinforced polymer composites

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This project is to initiate an international research collaboration between the University of British Columbia (UBC) and the Technical University of Munich (TUM), regarding the application of large-scale, melt extrusion additive manufacturing (AM, or 3D printing) of fiber reinforced thermoplastic composite tooling. In 3D printing, deposition of the extrudate at high temperature followed by quick cooling to enforce solidification results in thermal gradients and, subsequently, stresses in a printed part; these stresses may cause manufacturing defects such as warpage or cracking in a printed part. A good understanding of the heat transfer in melt extrusion additive manufactured composites is instrumental for repetitive and consistently reproducible, high-quality printing. To unlock the full value that composite additive manufacturing has to offer, numerical simulation tools are needed to predict and mitigate the manufacturing defects in 3D printed parts. This exploratory UBC/TUM collaboration is to develop a transient heat transfer finite element model to study the temperature evolution in 3D printed composite material, which is required to evaluate the stresses, quality of bonding, and dimensional tolerance in the print.