Heat cycle testing

Formlabs,
We are making functional prototypes from Black and Tough(blue) materials and putting the parts through heat cycle testing (automotive). What are the maximum temperatures that these two materials can handle after post cure?
Thank you

Define “maximum” ?

Have you looked at the TDS from Formlabs ?

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Going low to -40C works good. Going up to 60 or 100C for black works OK in most circumstances(at 140C I can freeform the material). Tough can’t handle any higher temperatures than room temperature.

These temperatures should be familiar to you. :wink:

(we do automotive too and there just isn’t a formlabs material that is OK on these temps, HT is too brittle)

Thanks to all for the replies. I looked at the technical data sheets and did not see info on what temperatures that cured parts can withstand.

“withstand” is again a vague term, what do you need the part to do ? What kind of test are you performing to assess the part’s performance ?

In the TDS there are 3 information.

Two are a heat deflection temp as per ASTM D 648-16 (similar to ISO 75) which means that the specimen (which is either edgewise 120x10x4mm or flatwise 80x10x4mm) deforms by 0.25mm at a given temperature (45.9 °C and @ 1.8MPa for Tough… which goes to show that it does keep being useful up to a temperature of about 45° which is almost twice as high as what would consider “room temperature” as @fantasy2 wrote, but again it depends on how much stress you apply. This also gives you an indication that it will not perform well under load at more than 50°C.

As methacrylates do not have a melting point, it’s not possible to say that the part will “fail catastrophically” at a certain point when raising the temperature, although they will become more soft/malleable (that is unless you make them hot enough to burn but I’m sure that falls out of the range of your use-case). As they are isotropic, they also do not tend to have much internal stressed so they will not display a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” at a certain point when lowering the temperature, although they will become more stiff and brittle.

The third it the thermal expansion, it helps you determine if the part can still fit within its assembly once heated/cooled.

I don’t think you will get much more information than this. Climatic testing for automotive does usually require you to provide a way to test that the part is still functional after and/or during the test. Usually the test is all about the fact that without it it’s difficult to predict if the part will pass it or not, unless you have practical experience with the same material in the same situation.