Society for the Advancement of Material and Process

Additive manufacturing has been under rapid development over the past decade. Even so, the range of available materials to produce functional parts using additive manufacturing techniques remain limited. In this study, a flame-retardant (FR) nanocomposite polyamide 6 (PA6) formulation was compounded and extruded into Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) compatible filaments. Materials properties were characterized before printing. The FR PA6 nanocomposite showed lower MFI than the unmodified PA6 as expected, however the FR PA6 formulation exhibited improved thermal stability at high temperatures and more importantly significantly reduced flammability. To examine the printability of this FR PA6 nanocomposite formulation, the extruded filaments were printed using FFF. The print quality was optimized by fine tuning various printing parameters.