Hello fellow Hubs,
Today we’re officially announcing Fiber-Reinforced Nylons as a new material group on 3D Hubs. Thought I’d do a quick post to let you know a little bit about what it is and how it can be used.
Fiber-Reinforced Nylon is designed to print metal strength parts for the price of plastic. It is printed by embedding a continuous strands of fiber into FDM nylon. The printers used for this process are from Markforged.
Adding fibres during the 3D printing process is complex and needs an expert operator running the machine, so good thing we have our community (Hubs) of 3D printing experts taking care of this 
Markforged printer
Parts have a higher strength-to-weight ratio than 6061-T6 Aluminum and are up to 27x stiffer and 24x stronger than ABS. The in depth datasheets can be found here. Typical applications for Reinforced Nylon include engineering parts, like jigs, fixtures and tooling. The material is less suitable for small intricate parts.
Three different material reinforcements are available; Carbon-, Kevlar- and Fiberglass-Reinforced Nylon. Here’s some more information on the individual materials:
Carbon-Reinforced Nylon
Carbon has the highest strength to weight as well as the highest thermal conductivity. It’s ‘The Hulk’ of its category, in fact they even tested it to a point where it could’ve lifted a ten ton cement truck. Check the video:
Fiberglass-Reinforced Nylon
Fiberglass has the lowest cost of the reinforced Nylon materials. It’s as strong as Carbon Fiber, but 60% less stiff, and 2X heavier. Suited to everyday applications where needing strong parts.
Kevlar-Reinforced Nylon
Kevlar has the best abrasion resistance and is the most flexible Reinforced Nylon material. For parts that need to be durable and resistant to impact. Calm down though, no bullet proof vests just yet although we might have to design a little something for “testing”
I’m really excited about this new material group as it allows to use affordable FDM printing for heavy engineering applications. A big win for desktop manufacturing. Even though I know most of you are Hubs, I reckon you might want to give this a shot nonetheless. If so, you can try so here.
Cheers,
Filemon
