Investigating inexpensive polymeric 3D printed materials under extreme thermal conditions

3D printing is nowadays used for many applications far beyond pure rapid prototyping. As tools to prepare custom-made objects which may be highly complex, different 3D printing techniques have emerged into areas of application where the mechanical, thermal, optical and other properties have to meet high requirements. Amongst them, applications for space, e.g. for microsatellites, make extreme demands regarding the stability under high temperatures. Nevertheless, polymeric 3D printed materials have several advantages for space application in comparison with metal objects. Here we thus investigate the impact of temperatures up to 85 C and 185 C, respectively, on typical 3D printing materials for fused deposition modeling or stereolithography (SLA) with inexpensive 3D printers. The materials are found to differ strongly in terms of mechanical properties and dimensional stability after the treatment at a higher temperature, with SLA resins and co-polyester showing the best dimensional stability, while acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene and SLA resin after long UV post-treatment has the best mechanical properties.