Essentium TPU 74D

Essentium TPU 74D filament is an FDM 3D printing material that is part of Essentium's portfolio of flexible materials. Essentium is renowned for its industrial 3D printing solutions, as well as its wide range of filaments for a variety of general and specific applications in aerospace, automotive, energy and other industries. As a result, Essentium remains at the forefront of additive manufacturing and is chosen by a large number of companies for the quality of its products.

TPU 74D is composed of TPU. TPU (Thermoplastic Polyurethane) is a thermoplastic, more specifically a linear elastomer polymer belonging to the polyurethane family. Within TPU, different hardness ranges can be found. In the field of 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.

Semi-rigid material

The 74D TPU filament has a 74D Shore hardness, the highest among Essentium's flexible filaments. Therefore, despite falling into this category, this filament is considered a semi-rigid material due to its high stiffness.

Despite its stiffness, this filament maintains other properties of TPU, such as:

• Excellent impact resistance
• Tear resistance
• Abrasion resistance
• Chemical, solvent, oil and ozone resistance

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

Despite its flexible nature, this filament can be printed on almost any desktop 3D printer on the market, even those with bowden extrusion systems.

Because of its TPU base, 74D shore hardness, and properties, this filament is ideal as a direct replacement for ABS. This is very useful since the 74D TPU filament, unlike ABS, has no tendency to deform, thus avoiding to a great extent the warping effect so common when 3D printing with ABS.

Applications in industry

Thus, 74D TPU filament is useful for applications requiring high impact resistance, high chemical resistance and good abrasion and wear resistance, such as:

• Rapid prototyping: The 74D TPU allows rapid prototyping to bring ideas to life with great immediacy, allowing the materialisation, testing and presentation of different models or improvements on an initial design until the desired result is achieved.
• End-use parts: Thanks to its mechanical and chemical properties, the 74D TPU filament allows you to 3D print end-use parts and components quickly, accurately and with good repeatability, making it possible in some cases to produce parts that would be very complex using other manufacturing methods or technologies.

Specific applications for 74D TPU filament include the manufacture of covers, connectors, vibration isolation parts and impact-resistant structural components, among others. These applications are usually developed in sectors such as the industrial or medical sector.

In the case of 3D printing equipment with multiple print heads, it is possible to produce complex parts using 74D TPU and a support material, or to produce parts with areas with different mechanical properties. This offers enormous possibilities and design freedom.

Due to its properties and composition developed specifically for AM, 74D TPU is an ideal solution for companies requiring the manufacture of semi-rigid parts with excellent impact resistance and chemical resistance.