Fiber-reinforced 3d printing

A three-dimensional printer for additive manufacturing of a part, the three dimensional printer comprising:

• a build platen for supporting the part to be manufactured;
• and
• a print head including or connected to a fiber composite filament supply loaded with thermoplastic-pre-impregnated fiber composite filament including one or more inelastic axial fiber strands extending within thermoplastic matrix material of the filament;
• wherein the print head includes
• a first heating zone between the fiber composite filament supply and a heated nozzle, which first heating zone is heatable by a first heater above the melting temperature of the thermoplastic matrix material to pre-heat the pre-impregnated fiber composite filament;
• a consolidation element located after the heated nozzle, to apply a consolidation force and/or compaction force to the fiber composite filament to attach the fiber composite filament to the part, wherein the consolidation element opposes at least one of the build platen and previously printed structures of the part, the heated nozzle being heatable by a second heater to at least the melting temperature of the matrix material to heat the fiber composite filament;
• a filament to drive the fiber composite filament including the one or more inelastic axial fiber strands, through the first heating zone into the heated nozzle, at a selected feed rate;
• a cold feed zone between the filament drive and the first heating zone, to maintain the temperature of the fiber composite filament below the melting temperature of the matrix material;
• a non-heated heat break zone between the first heating zone and the heated nozzle to create a temperature gap between the first heating zone and the heated nozzle;
• wherein the three dimensional printer comprises a plurality of actuators to move at least the print head including the consolidation element relative to the build platen in three degrees of freedom.