The winners of the Solvay AM Cup have been announced. 33 student teams battled it out in the competition which tested the limits of 3D printing in one of the industry's toughest materials, PEEK.
The competition launched in November last year and the final round saw the teams whittled down to just 11 finalists who were each tasked with printing four tensile bars and the Solvay logo in KetaSpire PEEK AM filament.
PEEK a highly sought after yet challenging polymer to print with. Yet it is also very resistant and durable and therefore in demand in industries such as medical and aerospace.
I was invited along to serve on the jury which included Stephane Jeol, Technology Manager at Solvay Specialty Polymers, Shari Axelrad, Technical Development Engineer at Solvay Specialty Polymers, George Corbin, Special Projects Director at Solvay Specialty Polymers, and Jerry Qi, Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology.
SLS printed Solvay logo in PEEK.
The pieces were put through a number of different tests to determine mechanical resistance, dimensional accuracy and density. The jury were invited to make a qualitative assessment of the parts, looking for surface smoothness, colour uniformity, crystallisation and homogeneity of the bars.
The entries showed some interesting results, each team came at the challenge with a completely different solution whether it was a custom enclosure, water cooler, additional heating, glue stick on the print bed, or beyond. A diverse range of equipment was also employed by the teams all the way from a sub 300 USD printer to exploring GOM's 3D metrology equipment to check for accuracy.
Winning first place was the ePEEK team from Arts et Métiers ParisTech in France. Their tensile bars earned the highest scores for 3D printing PEEK parts that exhibited an exceptional tensile strength of 80 MPa in the z-axis, a performance similar to injection moulding. Their logo entry was also extremely well-made.
The Jugao team from Xi'an Jiaotong University in China were awarded second place for printing the Solvay logo with the highest aesthetic qualities.
In third place, the Chloé Devillard team from Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 in France demonstrated outstanding creativity and innovation in resolving the technical challenges of printing tensile specimen in the z-axis without any support material.
The winners received prizes of ten, five and three thousand Euros to be used for academic, entrepreneurial or societal purposes.
The AM Cup highlights the chemical company's focus on the additive manufacturing which includes serious investment in a dedicated AM R&D lab at its Alpharetta, Georgia site and the first commercial introduction of several AM-ready advanced polymer technologies and 3D printing simulation and service solution at RAPID + TCT next month.
Visitors will also be able to get a closer look at the winning entries on booth #1924 in Fort Worth, Tex. from April 24 to 26 where Solvay will also be making several other announcements.
