olnico

PCH is a new generation of material that I've been working on for several months now.
It is a hybrid material made of glass fiber or carbon fiber laid up on a 3D printed honeycomb structure. What makes the strength of the material is actually the printing material. It is what I call PYCABS: a mix of ballistic grade Polycarbonate and ABS.

http://www.stratasys.com/materials/fdm/pc-abs

The result is a bullet proof material that is both very stiff and shock absorbing.
I am quite proud of this as it is the first time that I come up with something as original and high performance as this. As far as I am aware of, this is unique in the industry.

The advantages of this material are the following:

• 3D printing allows for extremely complex shapes to be created.
• The resulting composite structure is light, stiff and shock absorbing.
• The full digital production chain enables a fitting tolerance of 0.2 mm.
• The production time is short, and material cost reasonable.

The limitations are the fact that the part size cannot be bigger than the printing bed. In my case: 20 cm by 30 cm.

Here is a video of an AD Diamond door structure printing:

https://vimeo.com/101165827 An example of a fairly complex door structure designed by CAD:



And the printed result. The glass fiber layup is on the other side of the door and makes the part quite white:




The door attaches to the main strut with CAD designed clips that conform to both the strut shape and match the door reinforcements. The full digital process allows for a fitting tolerance of 02 mm.



I am finishing the Diamond doors kit with this technique first, then I will carry on to the Scorpion, Super Scorpion and Phoenix.

Other cool designs about to come as well. Stay tuned...

sidgates

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Oli,
This is very exciting technology.

DiscoWings

My Feedback: (76)

Ahh yess everyone loves honey comb on rcu

FenderBean

seems like this would be a bit heavy of a material to use

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

My supplier has a 20"x30"x18" capability printer. Ive thought about starting a business printing small parts., like true to scale ordinance, scale landing gear,cockpits and and custom made work.
Ive been able to succesfully make dynamic parts in a single pass (that is parts that mechanically move like pinned linkeages).

I also have the ability to print Titanium, Steel, and Aluminum parts, and a myriad of Nylons and other reinforced fibers. I really wonder if it would be $ feasible here in the states.

erbroens

sweet.. and how much a printer capable of doing this costs this days?

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

Made this for my flight simulator for fun the other day (buttons are not functional yet).

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

A good one for "home" about $3000, but the results are not that good, parts would need post-processing. A good insdustrial one capable of metal processing, close to $1M+

RCISFUN

My Feedback: (44)

Well under the material listed is lists the printer we have at work which is a Fortus 400 MC, this machine is over $150K USD

http://www.stratasys.com/materials/fdm/pc-abs

I agree that large structural parts would not be light based on experience from prototypes we print on that machine.

For small scale details the 3D printer is the way to go!

olnico

That's an interesting point.
Actually, a composite panel printed with regular ABS structure would come out quite heavy.
PYCABS is much lighter than regular ABS when properly laid up with the appropriate technique. That is because tensile strength and furthermore flexural strength are 30&% higher.
That enables printing very thin honeycomb structures.

Here is the weight of a gear door produced in PCH:



And the same door produced with a quadriaxial 400 grs/m2 carbon fiber layup and 3 mm balsa core;



In that case, PCH is 10% lighter than a carbon fiber/ balsa structure.
I could produce a similar part from vaccum moulded aramid nomex/ 200 grs carbon for about 24 grs as well but at a considerable expense.

We're talking about sub 30 grs parts anyway, which is very light.
A complete gear doors set with all the clamps come at about 150 grs.

olnico

No printer on the market is capable of producing a part like this. The trick is combining a 3D printed core with the appropriate vacuum molded layup.
It took me a lot of efforts and thinking in combining these two techniques. One of the catch is to find the appropriate layup resin/ material combination.
The other difficult part is to produce the right honeycomb pattern and thickness to achieve stiffness, light weight and proper inter-layers adhesion.

olnico

We're not talking about Chinese paper honeycomb here

jon sykes.1

Hi Oli,
well done for having vision and innovating ! It's much easier to sit at a keyboard and knock someone's achievement ,than get off your arse
and do something new and interesting!
Well done and keep up the good work ,always enjoy your articles etc and have picked up some useful tips , thank you.
regards Jon Sykes.

marc s

Another advantage in this technique from what I can see is you can in-build fixing areas so that where crushing occurs normally with a honeycomb laminate when using say a nut and bolt this offers you a bespoke internal structure to allow for this sort of fixing application.

Nice product.

marcs

olnico

Absolutely Marc.
The other door includes the actuating horn and piano hinge attachment slot.
The door clips have printed threads so that there is not even any need for a nut in there!

Thanks for the kind words!

olnico

Thanks Jon.
The more tips you pickup, the more significant my work becomes!

erbroens

This material is very promising.. however due to the cost of printers seems that this is still out of reach for most modelers for now.

Stretching a bit the concept maybe it would be possible to build a complete airplane using this plastic honeycomb..someone offering a kit like this but with rigid,full surface detailing would be fantastic:

http://bukvorez.com/index.php?option...d=78&Itemid=83

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Hi Oli,

THis is very nice. As you said the exploitation of the material and the manner that it prints is important. I cant claim to know how it is done but I know you can make parts with much better mechanical characteristics if you know the material and the machine.

FalconWings

My Feedback: (57)

It would be possible if you could mix materials. Im not sure it can be done right now....I will ask. It would be asweome if you could model something with soft Nylon 12, then reinforce with thin aluminum where specified.

You can get the Makerbot 2 for ~$3K......but again I dont think you will get the finish that you want on a single pass.......however you can make cockpits, ordnance, specialty hinges, lots of goodies.

mr_matt

My Feedback: (10)

Some of the SLA printers are coming out at only a little more than that and the detail is superb. You would likely use the SLA as a model for a resin cast and not the final part. But maybe the UV cured resins have gotten better. For SLA it is all about the resin.

dbsonic

My Feedback: (3)

Interesting stuff.

olnico

For information, I am now working with my filament supplier on experimental materials. Among which are:

Carbon fiber reinforced ABS
Carbon fiber reinforced PLA
Carbon fiber reinforced PYCABS
New formulated PYCABS with more polycarbonate per kg

All these materials are more difficult to print and subject to nozzle clogging ( except for the last one ) but will provide amazing results.

Also for information, the university of Harvard is working on a similar project with slightly different techniques but fairly similar results.

Have a look here:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/201...-of-balsa-wood

olnico

I am also working with mathematicians who have implemented new 3D honeycomb generation patterns. These exhibit compressibility resistance in 3 directions instead of 1 direction for classical nomex/ paper honeycomb.

The algorithm used can be tweaked to generate a larger thickness ondulation and thus create 3D honeycomb cells exactly similar on x, y and z axis.

patf

My Feedback: (4)

Amazing stuff Oli!

olnico

Thanks Patrick!