Trends in Materials Development

Most suppliers have been focusing their product efforts on existing material bases - making the process easier and less costly. It may not be particularly evolutionary, but it has given rise to highly productive materials with fewer drawbacks for designers. It does appear that overall material and colorant suppliers have been listening to the pleas of designers and molders. Suppliers are indeed following some clear trends: globally uniform colorant systems, large auto body panels and application specific grades. These suppliers are partnering to develop new special material effects and quicker color matches. For example, a whole new era was unleashed when Apple released its iMac PC with ergonomic design and vibrantly colorful shades of plastic.

So, where will these materials, some yet to be made, take design engineers, product developers and their time-to-market projections within the next decade? What impact will all of these trends have on material-related jobs and on the engineers who use them? More important, what major developments in material will emerge from companies in the next year?

"Materials will have to do a lot more things than they had to before," prophesizes Charles Kaufmann, manager of marketing development at DSM Somos (New Castle, DE). "A limitation of many existing prototyping materials is that they age very badly, you make a prototype today and in two to three months it becomes brittle. As soon as you try to flex it, it breaks. This reduces the functional life of the prototype part."

Kaufmann says a major materials development challenge will be to eliminate the aging problem so people can use parts for longer periods of time. The outgrowth of this development will be that rapid prototyping processes can be extended to rapid manufacturing of production parts.

For example, right now you can't take a stereolithography part and plug it into a product that has a life expectancy of five to 10 years. This materials development will not only drive RP, but also determine whether RP can mature into rapid manufacturing. The first step in the longevity test will have to come in short-run production parts because if you can make something with a good life and good accuracy it will have a major impact on the materials and RP world.

"There are a lot of multi-purpose materials out there," says Kaufmann. "You will see a lot more focusing on niche products - materials specifically designed to work well in particular applications."

Industry insiders envision stronger, more functional and better materials coming into the fray within the next five years. What companies say they want to see more of is an ability to fabricate parts and increased ease of use, so that one does not have to possess a Ph.D. to understand the materials and make the parts. There is hope that there also will come a time when tooling schemes can allow mass production of rapidly produced tooling. For example, instead of a concept model where the design engineer is limited to just looking at it, he or she will actually be able to use it and see how it operates. Some companies already possess this capability. Material advances also will affect how the engineer works, allowing them to see results and functional data long before having to change or freeze specific designs.

"What we are working on is a way to get even more functional parts into the hands of people right off the bat," says Bill Priedeman, materials development director at Stratasys (Eden Prairie, MN). "If people can make functional parts that can be rapidly manufactured, those parts can be fit into applications much quicker. I see a shift toward that area very soon.''

Priedeman indicated that Stratasys is concentrating on higher strength, higher temperature and more chemically-resistant materials that will allow more functional parts to be made. The company is currently working on polycarbonate for the Stratasys FDM process due to its enormous impact strength and high deflection temperature. In addition, they are working on a polysulfone for even higher temperatures and greater chemical resistance and impact strength. This material has excellent chemical resistance so it can be exposed to automotive fluids and will not dissolve or crack. It also can withstand temperatures to 400°F, be steam sterilized and has a flammability rating of V-0. Both materials have high impact strength, which allows them to be used where mechanical force is exerted on parts.

"Companies want tougher materials so they can check their designs thoroughly and be able to utilize parts that have longer lives," says Priedeman. "With tougher parts that last through more than one use, they can get a lot closer to the final design."

Knowing that, designers also have to understand that all materials are not created equal. The materials process has everything to do with functionality, fabrication and finish. It is a constant inching up process, which creates other materials and slowly improves upon materials already in existence. The material itself does not make it happen for a company, it's the fabrication, engineering and design processes that create the waves, says Bob Cleereman, global director for materials engineering at The Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, MI).

"There are far more options with materials than most people can comprehend," he stresses. "You can do some very fascinating stuff like soft touch over metal. That was not feasible 10 years ago and now there are 10 different ways of doing it."

Cleereman points out that realistically, technology alone does not drive anything in today's competitive marketplace. Even the newest and greatest technical advance will remain on the shelf unless designers can put it to work creating products utilizing the technology that satisfy a customer need in a cost effective, styled and exciting embodiment.

It's creativity that rules - fashion and aesthetics - having someone who can see past the technological challenges and improve on what's already popular. From hot cars to gotta-have cell phones to the most successful hand-held computer organizers, developing new materials with visual qualities that help products stand out and provide increased brand equity help companies gain the edge. This is where materials come into play because without the resins, polymers and plastics to help fuel the creative spurt seen in today's technology, manufacturing would be strapped to using the same designs, processes and formats that after a while can have detrimental effects. But being able to create these products and market, fabricate and design them opens the doors to designs that were not feasible before. Success happens when technology is coupled with creativity because successful companies are those that can attain fashion - the boring design will flop and the classy design will win.

"Even boring things are getting better thanks to improved materials," he says. "The classic laptop computer: how much longer will people carry around these boring things? It's doomed. There is no way it will be around in the next five years in its present state. Someone will put something neater together and steal the market. Companies now have the capabilities to engineer any product they want. It's continuous. Everyone is pulling everyone else along."

Most predictions indicate that even though portions of the materials industry may not currently be wired, it's only a matter of time before the Internet becomes an everyday fact of life for them. Resin distributor GE Polymerland (Selkirk, NY) began resin sales online more than three years ago, with their one-click business recently heating up their sales office phone lines. GE general manager for communication technology Alan Young says at the end of 1999 GE Polymerland was pulling down $5 million a week in revenue from the web, with their customer base covering a wide range of material users.

The rundown is rather easy: Customers select a grade, the quantity they want and a delivery date. The order is sent. The data is accepted into the company's back end system, which sends the customer an e-mail confirming the order. The database is then updated with the customer's information. Customers also can view a complete history of their orders, trace shipped orders, check material availability and if needed, modify an order.

"Materials are one of the variables that drive the end result because clearly they affect the look of a part," says Young. "They can be colored or they can be clear. Any material by itself will change the world."

Recently five big resin suppliers formed an online site where customers can go and get a broad list of resins from any of the companies. This brainchild gives customers a kind of one-stop shop for their needs. Instead of forever surfing the web in search of what they need, this consortium of companies will more than likely have it at the click of a mouse. This trend toward competitors cooperating in ventures such as these is a major shift in the materials' industry mood.

Moldmakers are continuing to push for longer-life silicone molds. Several companies have ongoing research efforts to discover ways of increasing physical strength or to improve the release of cured silicone. While many do not see a trend in this area there is a belief that in the future greater attention will be placed on specific urethane or epoxy formulations on the silicone mold. Every urethane and every epoxy - and there are literally hundreds of them being used at various service bureaus - will attack silicone uniquely. Materials users will definitely benefit from efforts to discover matched sets of plastic and silicone rubber. There does seem to be a trend toward single stage, one pour molds for the long term; however, some very large automotive part molds will probably always stay two stage. There also is a continuing trend by service bureaus and OEM users to make small- and medium-size, single-stage molds primarily for faster turnaround time.

"We see new stereolithography resins being developed to provide faster cure and better physical properties. Unfortunately, these new formulations sometimes affect the silicone mold or vice versa," says Mark Neuber, marketing manager for Shin-Etsu Chemical Co. (Tokyo, Japan). "We encourage collaborative effort among the resin manufacturers to ensure that the end-user gets a trouble-free resin/silicone system."

As OEMs make more of their own prototypes, the art of finishing an SL part, making a silicone mold and producing plastic parts will trend toward a system approach. Neuber says that he believes someday equipment that will efficiently process silicone, urethane and epoxy will be standard. Whoever develops this single-button process will succeed. Polymer manufacturers should look toward these systems integrators to drive future product development. Viscosity, cure, mix ration and other properties will affect the equipment these integrators will build. As chemists, Neuber says that they should listen to systems integration requirements and make changes accordingly.

"Shin-Etsu is working to develop higher durometer - clear silicones for applications requiring more dimensional rigidity," says Neuber. "We are continually looking at additives that will make silicone formulations more resistant to urethane and/or epoxy attack in order to provide longer life. Our first new product is a self-releasing, inhibition resistant version of our workhorse material KE1300T. Beta testing is still ongoing with plans of releasing the product to market sometime next year."

For more information contact Charles Kaufmann of DSM Somos (New Castle, DE) at (302) 328-5435; Mark Neuber of Shin-Etsu Silicones of America, Inc. (Akron, OH) at (505) 856-0988; Bob Hess of GE Polymerland (Huntsville, NC) at (413) 448-7594; Bill Priedeman of Stratasys, Inc. (Eden Prairie, MN) at (952) 906-2226 or Adrienne Proctor of The Dow Chemical CO. (Midland, MI) at (517) 636-3920.