Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a well-known and greatly accessible additive
manufacturing technology, that has found great use in the prototyping and manufacture of
radiofrequency componentry, by using a range of composite thermoplastic materials that possess
superior properties, when compared to standard materials for 3D printing. However, due to their
nature and synthesis, they are often a great challenge to print successfully which in turn affects their
microwave properties. Hence, determining the optimum printing strategy and settings is important
to advance this area. The manufacturing study presented in this paper shows the impact of the main
process parameters: printing speed, hatch spacing, layer height and material infill, during 3D printing
on the relative permittivity (εr), and loss tangent (tanδ) of the resultant additively manufactured test
samples. A combination of process parameters arising from this study, allowed successful 3D printing
of test samples, that marked a relative permittivity of 9.06 ± 0.09 and dielectric loss of 0.032 ± 0.003.
Funding
EPSRC research grant SYMETA (EP/N010493/1)
History
School
Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering
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