Essentium TPU 80A-LF- low friction

Essentium is a company at the forefront of additive manufacturing, providing solutions that help facilitate the transition to Industry 4.0. Essentium offers FDM industrial 3D printing solutions and supplies a wide range of materials with advanced properties to cover any need in sectors such as aeronautics, automotive or energy. 

Among these materials is TPU 80A-LF filament, a TPU-based filament with a composition that reduces its friction with other materials. This material has been formulated by BASF and manufactured by Essentium, bringing together the former's chemical expertise and the latter's high manufacturing quality.

TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) is a thermoplastic, more specifically a linear elastomer polymer belonging to the polyurethane family. One of the characteristics that differentiate TPU from other thermoplastics is its elongation at break. While other thermoplastics have up to 100 % elongation at break, TPU has up to 500 % elongation at break. Within TPU, different hardness ranges can be found. In FDM 3D printing, hardness is usually indicated by the Shore A or Shore D scales, which perfectly cover the hardness ranges of thermoplastics for AM.

With its TPU base and 80A shore hardness, TPU 80A-LF filament is one of the most flexible filaments in Essentium's portfolio and has the impact resistance and chemical resistance of the base material.

Video 1: Essentium materials guide: TPU. Source: Essentium.

Despite its flexibility, it is a relatively easy filament to print. This filament has a low friction surface which facilitates and guarantees a smooth material feed during the printing process. Due to its properties, TPU 80A-LF filament is very useful for those applications that require high impact resistance, high chemical resistance or high flexibility, and is an ideal filament for various sectors, with outstanding applications such as:

• Rapid prototyping: TPU 80A-LF enables rapid prototyping to bring ideas to life with great immediacy, allowing you to materialise, test and present different models or improvements on an initial design until the desired result is achieved.

• End-use parts: Thanks to its mechanical and chemical properties, TPU 80A-LF filament allows 3D printing of end-use parts and components quickly, accurately and with good repeatability, enabling in some cases the production of parts that would be very complex using other manufacturing methods or technologies.

Specific applications for TPU 80A-LF filament include the manufacture of gauges, custom springs, bumpers, vibration dampers, seals, gaskets, suction cups, plugs or straps.

If you have a 3D printing machine with multiple print heads, it is possible to produce complex parts using TPU 80A-LF and a support material, or to produce parts with rigid and flexible zones. This offers enormous possibilities and design freedom.

Due to its properties and its composition developed specifically for AM, TPU 80A-LF is an ideal solution for companies that require the manufacture of parts with high flexibility, impact resistance or chemical resistance.