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Additive Manufacturing

CCM Research Group supports both academic research and industry-facing prototyping through an integrated additive manufacturing workflow that spans material formulation, filament production, 3D printing, and prototype testing. The equipment for additive manufacturing covers a variety of materials, such as ceramics, cements and polymers.

Our polymer AM capabilities are centered on fused filament fabrication (FFF) using the Creality Ender 3 Pro and Creality K1C, complemented by in-house filament development with the 3devo Filament Maker ONE. The Ender 3 Pro (220 × 220 × 250 mm) is used as a baseline, highly repeatable platform for prototyping and composite screening, routinely processing PLA, PETG, and PLA composites. We typically run nozzle temperatures in the 180–250 °C range (up to 260 °C for short periods) with a heated bed up to 110 °C, and we select nozzle diameters based on material demands: 0.4 mm for standard PLA/PETG to maintain fine features and dimensional fidelity, and 0.6–1.0 mm for abrasive, composite filaments to improve flow stability, reduce clogging risk, and enable higher extrusion throughput. The enclosed Creality K1C (220 × 220 × 250 mm) is used for rapid iteration and batch production of PLA and PETG parts, providing improved thermal stability and repeatability for high-throughput sample series (DoE-style printing), functional day-to-day prototypes, and controlled print campaigns.

For ceramic and clay-based materials, we use the StoneFlower 3.0 multimaterial platform in paste/direct ink writing (DIW) mode to produce research-grade ceramic prototypes and architected geometries with tailored toolpaths and controlled porosity, supporting ceramic processing studies and application-driven demonstrators.

Using our filament extruder, 3devo Filament Maker ONE we produce small batches of custom thermoplastic and composite filaments-particularly PLA/PETG and PLA mixed with additives-enabling fast development cycles from formulation to print-ready material and allowing us to link filament composition and extrusion behavior to printability and final part performance.

Figure 1. The range of instruments available at CCM Lab
Figure 2. Images from optical microscopy of a fractured 3D-printed dogbone specimen used for mechanical assessment, showing the crack propagation and the printed filament orientation at increasing magnification: (a) overview of the crack propagation (scale bar: 5 mm), (b) top view of a fractured segment highlighting the infill pattern (scale bar: 2 mm), (c) higher-magnification view of the fractured segment (scale bar: 500 μm), and (d) close-up view of the fractured surface revealing local defects/porosity and interlayer discontinuities (scale bar: 500 μm).
Figure 3. Extrusion-based 3D printing of a ceramic paste and the resulting bead morphology using a 4.5 mm nozzle: (a) printing setup and representative printed part showing the deposited layer-by-layer filament pattern, (b) optical micrograph of printed layer lines (side view) illustrating the consolidated bead profile (scale bar: 1 mm), and (c) optical micrograph of the printed layer lines in cross-section highlighting bead shape and inter-road interfaces (scale bar: 1 mm).
Figure 4. Morphological characterization of the PLA/cement composite filament and 3D printed specimen: (a) optical micrograph of the filament surface showing the dispersed cement powder within the PLA matrix (scale bar: 500 μm), (b) SEM image of the fractured end highlighting a predominantly brittle failure with localized pull-out/debonding features (scale bar: 1 mm), and (c) photograph of the printed PLA/cement dogbone coupon used for mechanical testing.
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