Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) as an Additive Manufacturing (AM) method for Polyetheretherketone (PEEK) has established a promising future for medical applications so far, however interlayer delamination as a failure mechanism for FFF implants has raised critical concerns. A one-dimensional (1D) heat transfer model (HTM) was developed to compute the layer and interlayer temperatures by considering the nature of 3D printing for FFF PEEK builds. The HTM was then coupled with a non-isothermal healing model to predict the interlayer strength through thickness of a FFF PEEK part. We then conducted a parametric study of the primary temperature effects of the FFF system, including the print bed, nozzle, and chamber temperatures, on layer healing. The heat transfer component of the model for the FFF PEEK layer healing assessment was validated separately. An idealized PEEK cube design (10x10x10 mm3) was used for model development and 3D printed in commercially available industrial and medical FFF machines. During the printing and cooling processes of FFF, thermal videos were recorded in both printers using a calibrated infrared camera. Thermal images were then processed to obtain time-dependent layer temperature profiles of FFF PEEK prints. Both the theoretical model and experiments confirmed that the upper layers in reference to the print bed exhibited higher temperatures, thus higher healing degrees than the lower layers. Increasing the print bed temperature increased the healing of the layers allowing more layers to heal 100%. The nozzle temperature showed the most significant effect on the layer healing, and under certain nozzle temperature, none of the layers healed adequately. Although environment temperature had less impact on the lower layers closer to the print bed, 100% healed layer number increased when the chamber temperature increased. The model predictions were in good agreement with the experimental data, particularly for the mid-part of FFF PEEK cubes printed in both FFF machines.
Keywords: Fused filament fabrication; PEEK; heat transfer modeling; interlayer debonding; medical additive manufacturing; non-isothermal healing.