Behind the Scenes: Two Years of Material Science Development and Testing

In addition to aluminum-filled plastic, customers (especially from the automotive industry) requested a true black-colored production-grade material that produces parts ready to go with minimal post-processing. In other words: without any coating requirements. DuraForm ProX EX Black is a nylon 11 material that has a much better elongation and impact resistance than nylon 12. The drawback is that nylon 11 is more difficult to run consistently for most printers. This is another example where we at 3D Systems have taken the time to optimize settings, to fully test the material and to validate the mechanical properties so that when DuraForm ProX EX Black is running on a 3D Systems printer, it is delivering production-grade parts with the strength and durability needed to meet the demands of end users. DuraForm ProX EX Black, when used for automotive interior parts or consumer goods parts, has to be able to withstand continuous impact and exposure to the elements without failing, and it does.

Engineers are constantly looking for improvements and iteration to achieve better results and respond to ever changing requirements. This is why we have spent the last two years developing new materials designed to satisfy our customers' demands for elongation, flexibility, impact strength, rigidity, temperature resistance or flame retardancy. We have done the hard work for you. If you have any questions or would like to learn more,get in touch- we are here to support.

Stay tuned for part 2 of my blog post to learn more about the development of our flame-retardant DuraForm FR1200 material we just certified with Emirates - amazing experience!