F E AT U R E
By Christina Fuges
Practicality
& PossIbIlIty
Functional Components
from Plastic Droplets
The essential aspect of the machine and part pictured here is
that it is possible to produce one-off plastic parts and smallvolume batches from 3D CAD fles using standard granulate
and without requiring a mold. Arburg's AKF plastic freeforming
process produces functional components directly from plastic
droplets. This fexible part is an example of a two-component
application using a combination of hard and soft materials—
polyamide (PA) and thermoplastic elastomers (TPE).
The part was produced without using support structures.
It was made from conventional, low-cost standard granulates
instead of resins, powders, strips or otherwise pre-assembled materials. The produced part is not a prototype, but a
fully functional, high-quality component.
In the AKF process, the machine is flled with the standard
plastic granulate, a heated plasticizing cylinder melts the
plastic in the discharge unit, a nozzle closure uses fast opening and closing movements to produce the plastic droplets
under pressure, and the part is additively built up.
8— AM Supplement