What are the commonly used materials in 3D printing

1. Engineering plastics

Engineering plastics refer to industrial plastics that are used as industrial parts or housing materials, and are plastics with superior strength, impact resistance, heat resistance, hardness, and aging resistance. Engineering plastics are currently the most widely used class of 3D printing materials, common ABS, PC materials, PLA, nylon materials.

2. photosensitive resin

Photosensitive resin ultraviolet rays (UV) resin, composed of polymer monomers and pre-polymers, which is added to the light (ultraviolet) initiator (or known as photosensitizer). Under a certain wavelength of ultraviolet light (2500-300nm) irradiation, it can immediately cause a polymerization reaction to complete curing. Photosensitive resins are generally liquid, and can be used to make high-strength, high-temperature resistant, waterproof materials.

3. Rubber-based materials

Rubber-based materials have the characteristics of many levels of elasticity, and the hardness, elongation at break, tear strength, and tensile strength of these materials make them ideally suited for applications that require non-slip or soft surfaces. 3D printing of rubber-based products is mainly used in consumer electronics, medical devices, as well as automotive interiors, tires, and gaskets.

4. Metal Materials

In recent years, 3D printing technology has been gradually applied to the manufacture of actual products, in which the development of 3D printing technology for metal materials is particularly rapid. In the field of national defense, the developed countries in Europe and the United States attach great importance to the development of 3D printing technology, at the expense of investing huge sums of money to research, and 3D printing of metal parts has always been the focus of research and application. 3D printing of metal powder used in general requires high purity, good spherical degree, narrow particle size distribution, low oxygen content. At present, the metal powder materials used in 3D printing are mainly titanium alloy, cobalt-chromium alloy, stainless steel and aluminum alloy materials, etc. In addition, there are precious metal powder materials such as gold and silver used for printing jewelry.

5. Ceramic materials

Ceramic materials have high strength, high hardness, high temperature resistance, low density, good chemical stability, corrosion resistance and other excellent characteristics, in the aerospace, automotive, biological and other industries have a wide range of applications. However, due to the hard and brittle characteristics of ceramic materials make its processing and forming particularly difficult, especially complex ceramic parts need to be formed through the mold. Mold processing costs are high, the development cycle is long, it is difficult to meet the demand for continuous updating of products.

6. Other 3D printing materials

In addition to the above introduction of 3D printing materials, currently used in color gypsum materials, artificial bone powder, cell biological raw materials and sugar and other materials.OFweek3D printing network for you!