Research Interests (Lay Summary)

Alison joined I-Form in 2020 and is investigating additive manufacturing (3D printing) of composite materials. Her research involves embedding fine bundles of stainless steel continuous fibre into a polymer filament to make a composite filament. As 3D printed polymer parts have relatively low strength, research into combining polymers with other materials, such as carbon or metal, can result in improved strength and flexibility. Alison has modified the 3D printing process to accommodate manufacturing the steel composite components and her research is focusing on the effects of the number of stainless steel fibres on the structure's mechanical properties and structure. There is a high potential for the use of these composite parts is in textiles, automotive and marine applications.

Technical Summary

This work aims to successfully 3D print continuous stainless steel fibre-reinforced polymer components, evaluating the relationship between the volume fraction and mechanical properties. This is a novel research area as continuous stainless steel fibres have not been used as reinforcement for polymers before. The ex-situ prepreg fused filament fabrication technique is the adopted approach to increase the infusion of the matrix polymer into the reinforcing fibres. The procedure involves making a composite filament of a polymer matrix with the embedded stainless fibre bundle followed by 3D printing the components. Both the filament extruder and 3D printer are modified to accommodate the continuous filament. The main focus of this research is to examine the feasibility of increasing the volume fraction and lowering the porosity of the structures. The effects on the mechanical properties and geometry are then evaluated.