Production of polymer-metal hybrids using extrusion-based additive manufacturing and electrochemically treated aluminum

The development towards higher individualization and functional density pushes the need towards a flexible production of multi-material and lightweight components. In this paper, extrusion based additive manufacturing was used to produce polymer-metal hybrids with polypropylene and aluminum alloy. For this purpose, a screw-driven extruder on a six-axis robot was used. Due to the adhesion incompatibility of polypropylene and untreated metals, the surface of the aluminum sheets was electrochemically micro-structured. The investigations show that this enables a mechanically stressable joint through the filling of the surface microstructures with polymer. Investigations on lap shear joints reveal a distinct influence of the contact temperature between the polymer and metal onto the lap shear strength. A sufficient contact temperature is required for filling surface microstructures. Thus, increased metal and extrusion temperatures favor higher strengths. Furthermore, the use of a consolidation roll shows beneficial influences in lower temperature ranges due to the application of higher pressures during the polymer strand deposition.