Part performance of FDM printed Nylon 12CF Bracket for Cost-Effective Ground Support Equipment

摘要

The capability to print Polymer Matrix Composites using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) method has persuaded the manufactures to fabricate polymer filaments including chopped fibers or to develop multi filament printers to have fiber and matrix printed simultaneously throughout the part. The objective of this paper is to experimentally and virtually study the part performance of FDM printed Chopped fiber composites component. These sorts of analyses would let the designers and manufacturers modify slicing, G-code and to choose appropriate composites for certain servicing purposes. The configuration complexity of the components 3D printed with polymer matrix composite filament has put a burden for virtual modeling and analyses. This problem is derived from effect of defects like bald spots, voids, which are the nature of a 3D printed part, the effect of printing pattern and different response of matrix and fiber through the composite's structure under multiple various condition. An Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) based multi-scale material/structural Nano-mechanics modeling was performed to generate material properties. A Multi-scale Progressive Failure Analysis (MS-PFA) was performed to simulate various loading conditions to show damage footprint and structural behavior. In this paper, the mechanical properties of 3D printed Nylon 12 material reinforced with chopped carbon fibers were predicted and validated as an input for in-service loading analyses. Next, a component was FDM printed with the aforementioned material and experimentally tested under multiple loading conditions. It was shown that implementing MS-PFA method predicted the component's response, load-displacement curves, in axial, central and corner loading conditions and the results were validated with the actual tests. The damage contour for the bracket under all the loading conditions were plotted and the damage evolution processes were also shown. Further, the calculated damage footprint and simulated deformed shape showed a good comparison with test data.