Stratasys F123 carbon fibre
Part produced with Stratasys' FDM ABS-CF10 material.
Stratasys has announced the launch of an ABS-based carbon fibre material for its F123 Series of desktop 3D printing systems.
FDM ABS-CF10 will be available in April 2021 and has been introduced to provide manufacturers with more access to materials that can be harnessed to for a range of metal-replacement applications.
Reinforced with 10% chopped carbon fibre, the FDM ABS-CF10 is said to be 15% stronger and 50% stiffer than standard ABS and can be processed on Stratasys’ F170, F270 and F370 platforms with a high degree of accuracy, according to Stratasys. It can also be paired with QSR Support water-soluble material to facilitate the printing of intricate and complex components without needing to manually remove the supports. Stratasys believes the material is suitable for application such as manufacturing aids, alignment fixtures and robotic end effectors where it offers significant cost and weight reductions.
“There is a reason why manufacturers are increasingly turning to 3D printed carbon fibre materials. It's incredibly strong, versatile and lightweight,” commented Stratasys’ Senior Vice President of Manufacturing Dick Anderson. “We want to enable all our FDM customers to take advantage of those material characteristics. Introducing FDM ABS-CF10 is a significant step in growing 3D printing’s presence in the global manufacturing industry.”
“All the tooling we create has different and often unique requirements,” added Chris Botting, Materials and Environmental Engineering Manager at Marshall, who operates F370 and Fortus 450mc printers for tooling applications. “Our F370 3D printers offer us the flexibility to choose from a wide variety of materials based on application demands while still producing functional parts. 3D printing parts that we historically would have of metal has led to a significant cost reduction compared to machining the part out of aluminium, while reducing overall part weight. We can’t wait to begin to realise the benefits of FDM ABS-CF10 for creating manufacturing aids like we have with our other carbon fibre materials.”
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