Enhanced through‐plane thermal conductivity of polyamide 6 composites with vertical alignment of boron nitride achieved by fused deposition modeling

Thermally conductive composites consisting of polymer/boron nitride (BN) fabricated by conventional molding method can hardly achieve high through‐plane thermal conductivities (TPTCs) because the alignment of BN sheets would orient along the direction of melt flow. Based on the characteristics of fused deposition modeling (FDM), we design three printing methods to research on the orientation of BN sheets. In this article, enhanced TPTC samples of PA6/BN composites with vertical alignment of BN are achieved by FDM, and the maximum of TPTC of samples is 2.03 W·m −1 ·K −1 . Suitable design can reduce the negative effects of voids produced during the deposition of filaments. It's proved that FDM is an effective method to fabricate high TPTC products using less fillers by reasonable design. POLYM. COMPOS., 40:3375–3382, 2019.