(187h) Thermal Effects on Capillary Flow in Polymeric Powders

3D Printing (3DP) is a new, exciting, innovative, and disruptive technology. For 3DP companies, the ability to integrate nanomaterials into additive manufacturing is a desirable outcome. By incorporating these nanomaterials into 3DP, it allows for an even broader platform of materials. Expanding the materials portfolio empowers the consumer, enabling those individuals the potential to develop and engineer novel materials to exploit new functional properties.

Powder bed technology has the technological ability to push the materials portfolio. The powder bed technologies have the ability to introduce nanoparticles to the powder bed via the dispensed fluidic agent. To successfully implement a variety of nanoparticles into a variety of powder beds, fundamental approaches to understand capillary flow in polymeric powders at elevated temperatures need to be developed.

This presentation discusses a novel technique to measure relative contact angles of powder as a function of surface wetting at a variety of temperatures. The preliminary results for polycarbonate, polystyrene, and polyamide-12 have been promising. This technique may be beneficial to individuals or groups interested in in the 3D printing technologies, as well as those investigating flow through porous media or packed beds at elevated temperatures. The experiments reach temperatures of 65^oC. This technique is a viable method to probe interfacial phenomena at varying temperatures.