الفهرس 
Electrical propertiesOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Polymers and polymer composites are nowadays used in several fields
of application, such as in sporting, household goods, structural, and
engineering applications. Prior to the large scale fabrication, product
design; simulation, and prototype visualisation are common stages.
Especially the latter stage is often very time consuming. In the l980’s,
rapid prototyping techniques were developed to facilitate this modelling
and visualisation of products. Several various technologies have
accordingly evolved, making it possible to produce the threedimensional
model from different materials such as gypsum, wax, or
even metals, ceramics, and polymers. The rapid development of
technologies and materials has supported the desire to not only model
the final product, but also to test it for functionality, such as load
carrying characteristics, thermal, chemical, and physical behaviours.
The present thesis handles this specific challenge. For this purpose,
the thesis is divided into four sections. In the first stage a Do-It-Yourself
(DIY) 3D printing machine following the Fused Deposition Modelling
(FDM) technique is designed, optimised, and constructed. In a
following stage three different functional behaviours have been
analysed: (1) Mechanical performance, (2) tribological behaviour and
(3) electrical conductivity patterns. For each an experimental setup was
designed to analyse the process-specific behaviour of the material.
This implies the variation of the main process parameters; raster gap,
and orientation. To improve the performance, the incorporation of
additives, where appropriate, was considered. The following
paragraphs describe in more detail the individual stages conducted
throughout this study.
The FDM process simply builds up a 3D model by printing a sequence
of stacked layers. The machine thus deposits a thermoplastic melt
through a heated nozzle on a platform to form the individual layer. Then
the nozzle moves up by the amount of the layer thickness, to build the
next layer. This is repeated until the entire part is complete. The
designed DIY machine comprises a 1200W heater that heats a bed of
tempered glass. The printing nozzle has an opening of 1.0mm. The