Castillo González, J. Comino Montilla, Francisco Caruana, Roberta Guilizzoni, Manfredo Conrat, Paula Ruiz de Adana, Manuel Navas-Martos, F.J. 2024-11-18T11:07:06Z 2024-11-18T11:07:06Z 2024 http://hdl.handle.net/10396/29906 Evaporative cooling systems have emerged as low-energy consumption alternatives to traditional vapor compression systems for building air conditioning. This study explored the feasibility of utilizing polymeric foamed materials produced through additive manufacturing as wetting materials in evaporative cooling systems. Specifically, two different commercial polylactic acid filaments, each containing a percentage of a chemical blowing agent, were studied. Experiments were designed to evaluate the influence of critical process parameters (line width, flow rate, speed, and layer height) on the performance of the resulting foamed materials in terms of evaporative cooling by conducting water absorption, capillarity, porosity, and wettability tests. Considering that high water absorption, capillarity, and porosity, coupled with an intermediate contact angle, are advantageous for evaporative cooling effectiveness, a low flow rate was found to be the most important parameter to improve these properties’ values. The results showed that the appropriate combination of polymer and process parameters allowed the production of foamed polymer-based materials processed by additive manufacturing technology with optimal performance. application/pdf eng MDPI https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Castillo-González, J.; Comino, F.; Caruana, R.; Guilizzoni, M.; Conrat, P.; Ruiz de Adana, M.; Navas-Martos, F.J. Development of Innovative Thermoplastic Foam Materials Using Two Additive Manufacturing Technologies for Application in Evaporative Cooling Systems. Polymers 2024, 16, 3190. Foam material Chemical blown agent Additive manufacturing Evaporative cooling Water absorption Development of Innovative Thermoplastic Foam Materials Using Two Additive Manufacturing Technologies for Application in Evaporative Cooling Systems info:eu-repo/semantics/article https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16223190 Gobierno de España.MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 Junta de Andalucía.AT22CCTT_00001 info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/WIDESPREAD2018-03-857801 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess