SABIC reveals additive manufacturing strategy after the launch of two new products at formnext

'Product, process, application.'

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“SABIC is a materials company who has been looking at additive manufacturing for a while, trying to find our place in the value chain,” says Keith Cox, Senior Business Manager, Additive Manufacturing at the Saudi-born firm, as a whistle-stop tour of its formnext powered by TCT booth commences. Cox takes TCT from shelf to transparent cabinet to stand, to demonstrate the capabilities and vision of the latest chemistry specialist entering the additive space. At each stop, a different application printed in a different material, some already on the market, some announced that very day, and some still in development. The 45-minute conversation spanned the company’s motivation to enter the additive manufacturing (AM) market, its ideology now here, and Cox’s assessment of the task at hand.

The company stepped up its AM activities in May, announcing three product families of high-performance filament grades for FDM at RAPID+TCT, having previously only been a supplier of resins to the market. Like the array of other industrial heavyweights to have moved into AM, SABIC eyes the it as a profitable sector, but also appreciates the need to offer something different to its peers.

“I think what we bring that is relatively unique to the industry is we have got a strong materials focus, but as well, we invest heavily in the process development,” Cox stresses. “We also have a strong connection as well with OEMs and we focus on application development. What we try to do is marry those three things together: product, process, and application, to optimise our materials currently with process optimisation, and development process. That has allowed us to be very successful in a wide variety of conversion processes.

“Our overall approach is to take that same approach for additive manufacturing. Design the materials, optimise the processes concurrently for those so we have the materials we can bring in and market which have higher performances than what is available today, truly designed for additive. That’s the over-arching message of what we’re trying to do.”

The product families launched at RAPID+TCT were the ULTEM 9085 material, which has FST (fire, smoke, toxicity) compliant properties and is best-suited to the aerospace industry; the CYCOLAC AMMG94F, which is a ‘general purpose’ filament with good impact performance but lower temperature resistance; and the AM1110F, a LEXAN polycarbonate (PC), which is a high temperature material. All of these materials can run in Stratasys Fortus machines in standard conditions – SABIC, a supplier of resin to Stratasys, sees the Fortus as one of the most industrialised processes on the market.

SABIC followed up its RAPID materials launches with another FDM-compatible product at formnext: the LEXAN EXL AMHI240F filament; and the THERMOCOMP large format family of materials. The firm also has materials for SLS in development.

Cox is sure to emphasise that bringing new materials to market is only part of the company’s additive philosophy. He reiterates the desire to deliver products that aren’t yet available and is dividing new releases into three categories. The first category concerns materials like the ones launched at RAPID, which can be dropped into a Stratasys Fortus machine and run in standard conditions. The second category sees materials with ‘differentiated’ properties compared to those already on the market but can still run in standard conditions within Stratasys printers. The third generation of SABIC materials will not only have differentiated materials, but also require differentiated processing to be able to achieve the best performance of end use applications – In SABIC facilities, engineers have modified some of its Fortus hardware to process some of the ‘differentiated’ materials it is developing.

While the category three materials present obvious challenges, SABIC sees it as an important step to make for AM to become a widely-used production technology. Cox cites the dozen or so FDM materials available for Stratasys machines, and while a good selection, they simply can’t fulfil every need.

“As the industry matures, the industry is going to realise they need other performance capabilities and that will drive the need to find ways to print those, whether it comes from modification of existing equipment or new people getting into the market to produce equipment that has the capability to print these types of materials,” Cox assesses. “Is it a barrier? I think it is. But it’s a barrier that the industry is going to [breach] as this continues to become more of a production technology. We’re really trying to drive this away from prototyping to end-use part production, not because prototyping is bad but if you really want to drive volume and you want to drive adoption and you want to drive utility in the industry, you really need to make this a true production process.”

FDM

The LEXAN EXL AMHI240F material, Cox says, falls into the second category. It is a high impact polycarbonate co-polymer made with siloxane and is the first SABIC material with differentiated properties to be commercialised. At room temperature, it offers four times the impact performance of standard polycarbonate, and at low temperatures (down to 30 °C) can still achieve around three times better impact performance. On the wall of SABIC's booth was evidence of this superior impact performance in the form of mobile phone housings: a rival PC material experienced a ‘very brutal failure’ during a force test with bits of material breaking away and multiple shards present, while the LEXAN EXL AMHI240F had a much cuter break. As well as the mobile housings, SABIC was also demonstrating two applications of its new material. One was a life-size hockey mask and the other a drone.

Next stop, some FDM materials under development and set for release in 2018. Cox presented a small arm cast printed in a LEXAN FST-compliant polycarbonate material from a glass cabinet. Similar to ULTEM in terms of flammability performance, the polycarbonate is a lower temperature material – the Glass Transition Temperature (Tg) of ULTEM being around 217, and the LEXAN grade being about 142. When used with injection moulding, this type of material is typically used to manufacture personal surface units in aircraft. With regards to SABIC's three categories of product, it represents a category two.

Below the polycarbonate arm cast, was a series of support materials which SABIC will soon roll out, in ABS, PC and ULTEM. The ones on show were breakaway supports, but the company is also working on water soluble supports too. Further down was a sterilisation tray, printed in an ULTEM polyetherimide material based on SABIC’s healthcare resin. On the bottom shelf of the cabinet were parts printed in ULTEM 1010, a higher temperature material than the ULTEM 9085 – suitable for tooling, and next to it an ULTEM 9085 product which has been designed to have an enhanced impact performance. 

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SABIC's breakaway support materials on show at formnext powered by TCT.

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A sterilisation tray, printed in an ULTEM polyetherimide material based on Sabic’s healthcare resin.

SLS

By its own admission, SABIC’s materials typically don’t perform well in Selective Laser Sintering processes because its products are mostly manufactured from amorphous resins. Thus, its decision to target SLS as a viable market was a bold one. The company has developed a technology applicable to polycarbonate that enables the laser sintering of non-crystalline materials. Crystalline materials can absorb moisture, and as they do, the dimensions of the part can change. With SABIC’s amorphous material the potential for a part’s dimensions to change after the print are removed, and it can also achieve densities of between 96 and 97%.

“The thing that is truly unique about this is the technology that we use to enable us to print amorphous polycarbonate, we think we can translate to other amorphous resins,” Cox says. “In the case of the ULTEM, which is also amorphous, we can take the same technology, apply it in a similar way, and we can have sinterable polyetherimide. Similarly, we think you can take it and apply it to an even broader range of amorphous materials. From an industry perspective, we think it opens up the envelope of available resins which has the impact of growing the number of applications that you have materials to support. We’re pretty excited about that.”

Large format

While SABIC hadn’t officially launched products of its own to the 3D printing market until 2017, the company was still active in projects that were leaning on additive techniques. In 2014, Local Motors used SABIC 20% carbon fibre reinforced ABS material in the printing of the Strati electric vehicle. Three years on, the company had participated in its second large format 3D printing project, partnering with Livrea Yacht to print a boat hull, which was the showpiece of its booth at formnext.

The yacht project was a proof of concept and saw design contributions from Autodesk and finishing contributions from TruDesign. Autodesk designed the internal lattice structure to add strength to the part which was printed from an ULTEM-based material with 20% carbon fibre reinforcement. Meanwhile the rest of the internal structure is printed in 20% carbon fibre reinforced polyethylene ether, sold under the THERMOCOMP brand. Livrea Yacht is now set to modify the design of the boat hull ahead of a race it plans to participate in 2019.

For SABIC, it is yet another noteworthy demonstration of what can be done with its 3D printing materials. And while it doesn’t imagine its materials will be used for the 3D printing of every ship in the ocean any time soon, Cox suggests the potential for other players to be inspired to take the concept and apply it to a ‘true industrial application.’ It underscores SABIC’s intention to help drive the AM industry forward, and its method of investing time and money into product, process and application. It has facilities all over the world making contributions to the effort. Cox says he feels like every year is a busy year for SABIC’s AM operations, and with the wealth of developmental materials on its formnext stand, it looks like 2018 will be no different.  

“It’s a strategic focus for SABIC to try and advance this [industry] and a long-term commitment,” Cox emphasises. “A lot of people ask the big materials suppliers who are here, ‘what’s the interest?’ The real answer, at least in the case of SABIC, we’ve looked at this and we have concluded that although this technology probably will never replace injection moulding, or replace extrusion, it is certainly going to fit as a conversion process in the future. It makes sense for us to be involved now, help the industry along, and ultimately sell materials into the space in the future.

“There are materials out there that are great for prototyping [and] there are some materials out there which are good for end use part production. [But] it’s only the start for end use part production because there are so many application requirements that need to be met, whether it’s impact performance or flammability, chemical resistance. It’s a long list. And I think OEMs are going to be the driver. I think it’s a great start, but it has a long way to go. That’s where materials suppliers like SABIC can provide value.”