LEHVOSS Group Reveals New 3D Printing Plastics to be Showcased at formnext and Fakuma

The LEHVOSS Group, which operates under the management of parent company Lehmann&Voss&Co., is comprised of several chemical companies that develop, make, and market special materials for a variety of industrial clients. The company was an early adopter of HP’s Multi Jet Fusion technology, and has made a number of high performance filaments. Now, the LEHVOSS Group has revealed what new tailor-made 3D printing plastics it plans to showcase at the upcoming formnext and Fakuma 3D printing events.

This year, the company is celebrating 35 years of its high-performance, thermoplastic LUVOCOM 3F compounds; it launched the LUVOCOM 3F 3D printing material line within the last decade. These granulate compounds are meant for extrusion-based 3D printing, and are, according to a company release, “tailor-made to individual customer requirements.”

LUVOSINT and LUVOCOM 3F 3D printing materials for the manufacturing of volume components with outstanding properties.

“The oldest brand in the Customized Polymer Materials business unit can look back on a very successful period. With tailor-made thermoplastic high-performance compounds, the product series meets the challenging requirements of industry,” the release stated. “Focal areas here are applications in the fields of tribology, structure, high temperature and conductivity. Additional product series have become established in the meantime, and, for the past six years, they have included products for 3D printing with the brands LUVOSINT ® and LUVOCOM ® 3F. The LEHVOSS Group supplies technical compounds for industrial applications with the brand LUVOTECH ® . Rounding off the portfolio is the LUVOCOM ® P product line, with powders for electrostatic coating.”

LUVOCOM materials have excellent processing characteristics and material properties, including a high-layer bonding strength and the ability to be processed in an unheated build space, and products made with the granulates can fulfill their given functions reliably, regardless of tough requirements and standards. The company, in addition to its established materials currently being used in series applications, is also premiering its latest developments in high temperature-resistant and reinforced materials.

Sectional view of tensile test bar made of polyamide (40% carbon fibre) with 30% weight reduction.

New high-temperature LUVOCOM polyamide (PA) and polypropylene (PP) products will be on display, as will new LUVOSINT powder 3D printing products based on TPU and PP. These materials are already opening new applications in 3D printing, such as technical parts in mechanical engineering and automobile construction.

The company’s international LUVOBATCH business unit, which produces and sells customer-specific, high-quality additives and master batches, combines its functions so that everything, from development and product to pilot plant sales, is under the same roof. The LUVOBATCH PA BA 1001/1002 blowing agent system will also be on display at upcoming trade shows formnext and Fakuma.

This endothermic system makes it possible to reduce the weight of polyamide, with reinforcing materials like carbon and glass fibers, by up to 30%, while also keeping “the loss of mechanical properties at a low level.”

“Weight reduction as a means of conserving our resources is a fundamental constituent in the contemporary design and dimensioning of technical components in many industries, and particularly so in the automotive and aviation sectors,” the release stated.

“As an example, foamed components produced with this system exhibited a performance factor for bending stress in the range from 1 to 1.3. Consequently, the change in flexural strength is smaller than the reduction in weight.”

The LUVOBATCH PA BA 1001/1002 blowing agent system also makes it possible to avoid contraction cavities and sink marks, and uses a special polyamide as the carrier system to reduce, and even prevent, delamination in components that are put under high mechanical stress.

You can see the new LUVOCOM and LUVOSINT materials, and the LUVOBATCH PA BA 1001/1002 blowing agent system, at booth #3.1-E91 at formnext, November 13-16, and at booth #B1-1109 at Fakuma, October 13-17.

WMK Plastics, new technical center in Solingen with an area of 2.000 m².

In additional news from the LEHVOSS Group, its WMK Plastics GmbH subsidiary, which specializes in technical compounds and plastic granulates, is reacting to the company’s increased customer requirements and recently extended its premises in Solingen with a new 2.000 m² production hall. The new building is now home to a larger quality and development laboratory, which includes injection molding and pilot-plant extruder facilities in order to guarantee its customers sample availability and rapid development times.

The building also houses seminar rooms for the WMK Academy, which offers continuing employee training, and an extra standard, large-diameter production extruder for underwater pelletizing and strand cutting, so customers can see trial production runs. A laboratory extruder with a weighing device and detached feeding units for rapidly changing products, is also located in the new building. It has several additional side feeding units that can docked at different positions, and features a rotational speed of up to 1,200 rpm. Both the standard and laboratory extruder “provide the basis for guaranteeing the scale-up to other extruders.”

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