AM Cup teams were tasked with producing this pressure pipe in Solvay's Radel PPSU AM filament.
Specialty chemicals company, Solvay has announced the winners of this year’s AM Cup, a global competition which invites university students to explore the potential of high-performance 3D printing materials.
Following last year's competition, which challenged students to print with PEEK, teams were tasked with producing specific shapes using Solvay’s Radel polyphenylsulfone (PPSU) AM filament.
Winners were selected from 35 student teams from 32 universities across three continents. Each team received a spool of Radel PPSU AM filament with the main challenge to replicate an ASTM D638 Type V size tensile bar in the z-axis and a wavy-shaped pressure pipe, a difficult shape to injection mould. Entries were judged by an international panel based on maximum dimensional accuracy, mechanical performance including burst pressure tests, translucency, and creativity of 3D printing methods.
The overall winner was the Gekko Performance team from the Technical University of Munich, rewarded for thorough optimisation of all aspects of the printing process and equipment. The team was able to achieve 100 percent z-axis strength in the Type V size tensile bar and its wavy pipe showed overall dimensional accuracy, surface uniformity, and a remarkable mechanical performance by enduring a burst pressure test of 1,400 psi (96.5 bar) for two hours.
Two teams from Ghent University, Belgium - PPSUsual and PPSUPER - were awarded second and third place respectively. Both teams achieved the next best performance in tensile modulus, tensile strength, and ductility.
The three winning teams were awarded ten, five and three thousand Euros respectively, to be reinvested in academic, societal or entrepreneurial activities.
“It was inspiring to see the various approaches to solving the challenges of fused filament fabrication (FFF) such as bed adhesion and chamber temperature management. The winning team demonstrated once more that 3D printed parts can virtually match the performance and quality of conventional injection moulded parts, provided material, hardware, and process are optimised together,” said Ryan Hammonds, R&D platform manager for Solvay’s Specialty Polymers global business unit and president of the AM Cup Jury. “We look forward to sharing with our customers the benefits gained from this edition of the Solvay AM Cup for 3D printing the best possible PPSU parts for applications in various industries such as aerospace, healthcare and industrial.”
Solvay will exhibit the winning entries at RAPID + TCT in Detroit, MI (Booth #747) on May 21-23. To attend, register here.
