Dielectric breakdown of additively manufactured polymeric materials

• Published in: IEEE transactions on dielectrics and electrical insulation Vol. 22; no. 6; pp. 3543 - 3549
• Main Authors: Monzel, W. Jacob, Hoff, Brad W., Maestas, Sabrina S., French, David M., Hayden, Steven C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York IEEE 01-12-2015; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: additive manufacturing; Dielectric breakdown; dielectric materials; dielectric measurements; Dielectric strength; Dielectrics; Electrical insulation; Electrodes; FDM; Frequency division multiplexing; Fused deposition modeling; Plastics; Polycarbonates; Polyjet; Printing; Rapid prototyping; Resins; Selective laser sintering; SLA; SLS; Stereolithography; Testing
• ISSN: 1070-9878; 1558-4135
• DOI: 10.1109/TDEI.2015.005199

Dielectric strength testing of selected Polyjet-printed polymer plastics was performed in accordance with ASTM D149. This dielectric strength data is compared to manufacturer-provided dielectric strength data for selected plastics printed using the stereolithography (SLA), fused deposition modeling (FDM), and selective laser sintering (SLS) methods. Tested Polyjet samples demonstrated dielectric strengths as high as 47.5 kV/mm for a 0.5 mm thick sample and 32.1 kV/mm for a 1.0 mm sample. The dielectric strength of the additively manufactured plastics evaluated as part of this study was lower than the majority of non-printed plastics by at least 15% (with the exception of polycarbonate).