An Italian producer of filament for 3D printers, Filoalfa is offering its customers a new innovative material for FDM 3D printing: rubber! "We created several new rubber mixtures. Currently on sale is the FiloFlex 43D, available in anthracite black. To the touch similar to natural rubber, it has the ability not to deform and return to the original shape", says Luciana Ciceri, owner of the company together with Antonio Berera, her husband.

The study of new materials is on the agenda for Filoalfa and for these reasons Luciana Ciceri and Antonio Berera have partnered with the University of Pavia in the project 3D@Unipv and Computational Mechanics & Advanced Materials Group. The project aims to give further impetus to 3D printing through innovative applications, especially existing technologies that combine virtual modeling and advanced materials, also investigating the social, economic and legal implications of this evolution. "We are continuing to test other material compositions. In this period we focused on the rubber to provide our customers with different products for many uses: playful or practical", Berera comments.

The project CompMech@Unipv was introduced at Plast 2015, in the new satellite 3D Plast exhibition, where a number of software systems for the production of additive manufactured items in plastics, for rapid prototyping and 3D modeling were presented.