Anisotropic mechanical performance of 3D printed polymers

摘要

As 3D printing continues to grow as a viable manufacturing process, quantification of the processing options and parameters will allow for better design and modeling of printed parts, or at least to clearly understand the trade-offs between the different options. To address this, a long-term, collaborative effort has been undertaken by the authors to accurately predict the properties of 3D-printed parts. 3D Matter has developed a model, Optimatter (www.optimatter.com). to fulfill this need by predicting the properties of printed parts depending on the printing technology, material and printing parameters used. This model is aimed at increasing the range of applications where 3D printing can be a viable manufacturing process. In order to get accurate property prediction, understanding the processing-performance relationship is needed. A comparison was made of the same materials, ABS and Nylon, printed with both a professional grade Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printer and a personal grade FDM printer. The result was three main findings: there is a decrease in performance along the Z-axis for both personal and professional printing; the properties along the X/Y-axes are very similar between the professional and the personal printers; and, the properties along the Z-axis are significantly better on the professional printer than on the personal printer. These results were expanded by using the OptiMatter platform further investigating the anisotropic properties of 3D printing processes. OptiMatter's data was used to complement the data points to comprehensively ascertain the difference between the different FDM manufacturing processes. It also added two new 3D printing processes: Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Stereolithography (SLA), showing that these processes were close to isotropic.