Carbon-fiber-reinforced polyphthalamide

PPA-CF

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Material Info

About

Carbon-fiber-reinforced polyphthalamide (PPA-CF) is a high-temperature engineering nylon often selected to replace simple aluminum components where weight, cost, or lead time matter. It produces a crisp, matte CF finish with stable dimensions under heat and load-well suited to spacers, brackets, housings, and lightweight tooling.

Design tip · Keep visible faces self-supporting (~45° or steeper) to protect cosmetics; areas that require support may show a more textured finish.

Parts are oriented by our team to balance strength, surface finish, and minimal supports. Final orientation is chosen for the best overall result.

Color & Finishes

Black

Technology

• Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Raise3D-Industrial-PPA-CF_TDS-V21-1

Material Properties

• Tensile strength: 12 MPa (XY)
• Tensile Modulus: 520 MPa (XY)
• Elongation at break: 1.9%
• Density: 1.15 g/cm³
• Melting Temperature: 231 °C

Description

• Material Highlights: Lightweight, very stiff, high heat resistance, low moisture uptake, aluminum-replacement ready.
• High heat resistance: HDT ~188 °C @ 0.45 MPa; ~113 °C @ 1.8 MPa (representative, printed + annealed).
• Strength-to-weight & assembly: ~50% lighter than aluminum (≈1.2–1.3 vs 2.7 g/cm³), high stiffness for bracketry; compatible with tapped threads and heat-set inserts.
• Applications: Structural brackets, spacers & standoffs, frame joiners, housings & covers, ducts/manifolds, jigs & fixtures, lightweight tooling.

Design Guidelines

Bounding Box

• Maximum Bounding Box: 500x500x500 mm
  Please note that parts exceeding 300 mm in any dimension will incur additional costs.
• Minimum Bounding Box: 10 x 10 x 1 mm
  The bounding box is a 3D imaginary outline of a box that encloses the smallest area occupied by your model. Your model must be within the minimum and maximum bounding box sizes. If the size of the model is close to the maximum bounding box, then the printing orientation will be restricted.

Walls

• Supported Walls: 0.8 mm
• Unsupported Walls: 1 mm
  A supported wall is connected at least on two sides of the wall, while an unsupported wall is connected only on one side of the wall. Walls that do not meet the minimum requirements may not survive printing and cleaning processes. Additionally, models may still be rejected based on the wall geometry of the model. Please consider the size of your model and reinforce the walls or add support structures as needed as minimum guidelines will not always be adequate for large models.

Wires

• Supported Wires: 1.5 mm
• Unsupported Wires: 1.5 mm
  A wire is a circular, rectangular or even triangular feature that is thinner in its unconnected directions than its length. A supported wire is connected at least on two sides of the model, while an unsupported wire is connected on one side of the model. Wires that do not meet the minimum requirements may not survive printing and cleaning processes. Additionally, models may still be rejected based on the wire geometry of the model. Please consider the size of your model and reinforce the wires or add support structures as needed.

Details

• Embossed Details: 0.2 mm
• Engraved Details: 0.2 mm
  For text, the ratio between width and depth, should be 1:1 and sans-serif fonts are preferred for line weight consistency.

Clearance

• Minimum: 0.5 mm
  Clearance is the space between two individual parts in a model. If the space among the individual parts do not meet the minimum clearance, then parts can fuse together or can be difficult to clean. This is important for movable pieces like hinges, gears, etc.

Sprues

• Not supported: Sprues are wires that keep two or more parts together. Parts should be connected with a minimum of two sprues each. Please consider the size of your sprues and increase them as needed as minimum guidelines will not always be adequate for large models. If the sprues are within the guidelines and are broken, but there is no damage to your model, we will still ship them as is.

Interlocking & Enclosed Parts

• Interlocking: Supported
• Enclosed: Not supported

Multiple Parts

• Not supported

Accuracy

• ±0.3 mm or ±0.3% of the nominal dimension, whichever is greater.