Determination of mechanical parameters of 3D-printed parts: Experimental and numerical analyses

Due to the availability of materials and low cost of production, fused deposition modeling (FDM) is becoming the most widely used additive manufacturing (AM) technology. The mechanical behavior of such materials is anisotropic, and their mechanical parameters have to be precisely determined in order to obtain reliable numerical simulations. In this paper, the mechanical parameters of a grid pattern with an infill density of 60% are experimentally determined. For this end, the tensile and compression tests are used in order to obtain the mechanical parameters in both elastic and plastic domains. For the sake of validation of the obtained parameters, flat-ring parts are additively manufactured by considering two raster orientations 0°/90° and -45°/45° and a grid infill pattern with density of 60 %. These parts are subjected to a compression test showing the influence of the printing parameters on the mechanical responses. The effect of the raster orientation is then clearly observed, showing that the raster orientation of -45°/45° leads to more resistant parts. Additionally, simulations of the flat-ring parts include an analysis of ductile damage, providing further insight into how raster orientation affects mechanical behavior. Finally, the obtained numerical results were compared with the experiment.