Sacrificial tooling and mandrels for composite part fabrication – design guide

Additive manufacturing has fundamentally changed the procedure for creating complex, hollow composite parts. While basic shapes with constant cross sections are easily manufactured using traditional composite manufacturing techniques, complex composite parts with hollow interiors present a unique manufacturing challenge.

ST-130 FDM material allows for simple production of sacrificial tooling for hollow and complex composite parts using a thermoplastic material that dissolves in a basic (> 7 pH) solution. This eliminates many of the design and manufacturing limitations caused by using eutectic salts or other sacrificial tooling methods.