The German inventor Kai Parthy from CC-Products has been experimenting with his PORO-LAY filament series, when he found out that is has one material-property, which is very rare and has never been seen in 3D printing: visco-elasticity.
This means the material is elastic (as rubber) with an additional damping effect. It has a delay while relaxing; the elastic effect has a retardation. It needs a couple seconds up to minutes to go back in its form before it was stretched. A simple rubber will only re-tract at once, such as polyurethane filaments (e.g. NinjaFlex).
The new found property works at room temperature, which is interesting for following applications:
- to store small amounts of mechanical energy
- to damp vibrations
- inner shoe soles
- visco-elastic foams
- artificial soft-tissue
- retardation of mechanical movements (e.g. trigger a fast movement and change the movement into a slower motion)
After an initial rinsing in tap water, similar viscoelastic properties can be achieved by soaking it in oil and alcohol mixtures, in a low concentration of glycerol or in a solution of different salts.
The above proposed fluids will substitute small amounts of remaining water (from inside the capillaries) and are able to condition viscoelastic values of the printed object.
The second property of LAYFOMM 40 lets you also print sponges, as shown in the following video and pictures:
LAYFOMM is already available at ebay and different online-stores like Matterhackers and Formfutura.
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