Dual Material Fused Filament Fabrication via Core-Shell Die Design

In this work a fused filament fabrication (FFF) die design, capable of extruding two thermoplastics simultaneously in a core-shell configuration, is demonstrated as a means to produce composite structures in a single step. Despite the enormous advancements in 3D printing, fabrication of FFF objects with a composite structure remains a challenge due to the difficulty in finding dies to extrude such structures. We used polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) filaments to perform core-shell 3D printing. HDPE is one of the most commonly produced plastics but rarely used in FFF due to the severe warpage caused by volume changes upon its crystallization. Rheological and thermal analyses suggest the use of HDPE as a shell material due to its extremely short reptation time and sharp melting peak that facilitate superior surface contact and interlayer weld strength at the interface between neighboring FFF tracks. PETG is a commonly used 3D printing filament with excellent printability and sufficient zero shear viscosity to help maintain the extruded filament shape against shrinkage induced by the HDPE shell. Impact and tensile properties of core-shell objects revealed tremendous improvements in the impact resistance and toughness especially at 30 vol % HDPE shell with 1280% and 150% enhancement in impact resistance when compared to individual components: PETG and HDPE, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy was used to analyze the fracture morphology of the tested specimens to obtain an understanding of the fracture mechanism leading to the increased impact resistance. Using this die design can help open avenues of fabricating high impact resistance materials suitable for high performance applications and using HDPE in 3D printed objects with its superior solvent resistance.