Measurement of the Low Temperature Porosity of 3D Printed Materials

3-D printed materials have opened the door to the efficient and affordable manufacturing of unique geometries. These materials have the ability to transform fabrication of low temperature apparatuses, however not much is known about how these materials behave at low temperatures. In order to determine what applications this material can be used for at low temperatures, we designed an experiment to measure the porosity of PLA by measuring the flow of helium gas through it between 300 and 77K. Preliminary results have shown an increase in the flow rate at low temperatures. We plan to investigate this further with an improved experimental set-up.