Material Evaluation and Selection Criteria for 3D Printing

3D printing has emerged as the primary additive manufacturing technology, widelyutilized across industries in the past decade for its design flexibility, material efficiency, andrapid prototyping. FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) stands out among 3D printing techniquesfor its use of reliable polymeric filaments, offering advantages like lightweight and cost-effectiveness. Despite the advantages of FDM, the abundance of filament materials in themarket poses challenges in material selection to 3D printer users, that is which should beselected, and what should be the criteria to base. This research project is targeted to establishmaterial selection criteria for 3D printing, demonstrates that filament material selection shouldbe driven by the function of the printing object. The project endeavors to evaluate the propertiesof four major filaments available in the market, choosing a biomimetic hand as the final printingobject. We identify suitable materials to be used to print each part of the biometric hand.Through experiments, we tested tensile creep, wear resistance, chemical solvent resistance anddensity of printing from the four filaments. We select Polylactic Acid (PLA) to make the 14phalanges bones due to its high wear resistance and compromise well on other properties;select Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG) to make the 5 metacarpal bones mostly dueto its high creep performance; select Thermoplastic Polyurethane (TPU) to make the 8 piecescarpal bones. Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is ruled out due to low chemical resistance,and not suitable for biochemistry environments. Filament selection in 3D printing shouldconsider material’s property which can best benefit the object’s function and duration,sometimes may compromise.