The UAV industry requires materials with high strength-to-weight ratios to enable longer flight ranges, higher speeds, and increased payload capacity. At the time, no commercially available filaments were able to meet these performance demands.

Tectonic3D developed a polypropylene-based material reinforced with 30% carbon fiber, produced on their high-end European manufacturing line. The material is fully processed and manufactured in Europe, offering a tensile modulus of 13,000 MPa and a low density of 1.07 g/cm³. This unique combination of stiffness and light weight enabled a 30% reduction in the weight of the drone fuselage.

"As an 3D printing industrial we always want to choose the right material. There is not much filament available to print strong and ultra lightweight parts on the market. Tectonic-3d KRATIR PP CF is one of them. The use of this filament made it possible to reduce the weight of the fuselage of the printed drone by 30% without losing strength."
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Corentin Fromont
Research Development Manager at Cosmyx