3d Printed Materials
Turbo Mini Forums

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of 3d printed materials,

Ive been looking at them for a K head Plenum... basically I think nylon ( or GR Nylon) should take the pressure ok.. but what about heat... suposedly its ok for about 70-80 deg, boost temps shouldnt go much above 60 deg, bit I am concerned about heat soak from the engine....

there are some plastics that go to 170 deg, bit theres a price attached, and I havent found a reference to their porosity...

below is what I'm looking at printing.

Edited by Joe C on 9th May, 2016.

it may be easier to print moulds, then lay up fiberglas or carbon in the moulds to actually make the manifold as a composite material has the inherant stregnth and you can pick a suitable high temp resin. most plastic oe manifolds I have seen are some kind of composite, very dusty and hairy when you drill thro them.

turbo 16v k-series 11.9@118.9 :)

Denis O'Brien.

CAD up a plug of the shape, then CAD up the core, then sand cast it in aluminium in your back yard. Don't forget to make the plug and cores 2% larger........

The stuff we've used at work is all low temp, due to the machine and the maximum heat it can produce to actually melt the feed wire. I'll ask the engineering boys if they've looked into high temp stuff...

I make a lot of stuff on a lot of different 3D printers at work, but all I do is select the machine, the material, and send the file over. Cost for my projects, is basically irrelevant, but I do have an understanding of it.

First, remember that "3D printer" covers a multitude of variations. The most common is the fdm approach of laying down a hot extruded bead, on top of another previously extruded bead, such that they fuse together. Trouble with this, is the stuff is porous.... Laser sintering, stereo lithography, etc is not generally porous, and for the nylon materials, is really tough, this process is a hell of a lot more pricey, and you'd be as well following sprockets advice. Remember too, anything nylon changes shape dimensionally as it absorbs moisture, so too a nylon base material plenum will change shape on a warm, muggy day compared to a cold, dry autumn....

good info Dave cheers,

Ally casting is out, just dont have the room to do this unfortunatly,

I was looking at laser sintered stuff(nylon), but thats a good point about the nylon absorbing moisure, I guess I could dry it and resing coat it to prevet this, but thinking out loud it it likely to be an issue, it seems like the expanson is in order with aluminium heaty expansion and its not like I'm bolting to a face.



hmmm

Great for prototyping but I'd be warey of long term use. Very dependent on the quality the machine can produce and the material you use. We use the nylon-type materials at work and whilst the spec of the material suggests its ok with 70deg+ Most parts will sag or distort if left near a window in the sun, which i'd guess isnt as hot as an engine bay. It would depend on your wall thicknesses you choose too, but thicker will mean more expense as part of the quote will be based on the weight of the material you use.

That said, if you have a printer at your disposal then have a go i'd say? But if your going to outsource it i'd look at other processes, either having a high density foam negative machined for GRP/Carbon, or sand casting tool to give to a man to do.

I have space if you can get everything over to me?

I'm excellent at burning the shit out of myself too. So this sound like the sort of thing that I should get involved in.

In the 13's at last!.. Just

We used a company called Graphite Additive Manufacturing to print us a plenum for our Formula Student car back when I was at Uni.
It is some sort of nylon (called 'Carbon SLS') with a few other things chucked in (inc. carbon dust) to make it less porous and stronger. It was very decent stuff and the final version of the plenum was very lightweight (2-2.5mm wall thickness and less than half the density of aluminium IIRC) and allows you to have some shapes you otherwise wouldn't be able to have, like built in trumpets, injector bosses etc.
I'm not sure how much they cost as we got it through sponsorship.

hmmmm genuinneeee carbonee fibreeee you say LOL

I made a foam mould for mine. And a handy fella on here made mine in "genuine" carbon ! It's rock solid and very light.
Might be an easier option ?
Phil.

Edited by Turbo Phil on 10th May, 2016.

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