Using carbon fiber tape to tailor the coefficient of thermal expansion in 3D-Printed composite tooling

In this work, we investigated the effect of plain woven carbon fiber tape embedded in each layer of an additively manufactured part on the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) and compared it to conventionally printed parts. Current advancements in Additive Manufacturing enable cost-efficient 3D printing of composite tools. However, these tools do not yet offer a low CTE comparable to Invar, necessary for producing aerospace-quality composite parts. Using the novel Advanced Tape Layer Additive Manufacturing process, the tape is placed on top of the bead immediately after extruding the short fiber-reinforced material. The samples are compared to Material Extrusion specimens from a Large Format Additive Manufacturing System. A lower CTE was achieved within the printing plane. Micro-computed tomography images correlate the preferential orientation of short fibers with measured CTE values. The CTE modification can match the part CTE to the tool CTE and therefore optimize the quality of manufactured parts.