Recent Developments in Fiber-Reinforced Thermoplastic Material Properties for Large Format Additive Manufacturing-A Review

The need for strong and lightweight materials in the aerospace and automotive industries has led to the development of composite materials which have a unique ability to tailor material properties to their applications. Although these composites are typically made by combining thermoset resins with fibers, recent applications for fiber-reinforced thermoplastics include Large Format Additive Manufacturing (LFAM). Fiber-reinforced thermoplastics allow the coefficient of thermal expansion of the material to be lowered enough to prevent excessive warpage and print quality parts at a larger scale. Although success has been shown for LFAM in some applications, there are still some significant strength and endurance concerns with LFAM-produced parts. This review will explore the developments and use of fiber-reinforced thermoplastics, their applications, and specifically their use and influence in the LFAM industry. It will also show the potential of using fiber-reinforced thermoplastics in future applications and explore various methods to improve the anisotropic properties. These methods include improving the LFAM process and combining LFAM with other manufacturing methods to improve properties. By using methods to improve the material properties of both the extruded material and the finished part, there is great potential for expanding the use of LFAM to more industries and applications.