An Experimental Investigation of the Mechanical Properties of Fused Filament Fabricated Nylon-Carbon Fiber Composites

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly growing field in both the researching and the industrial world, as it produces highly customized and geometrically complex objects. The most well-known AM technology for plastics is Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), in which a thermoplastic filament is melted and extruded through a nozzle on the printing bed. A wide variety of printing parameters affect the quality of the printed objects, such as printing speed, infill density, infill pattern, build orientation, layer height, etc. In literature, there is already extended research of the impact of the printing parameters on the mechanical properties of the most common thermoplastics, such as ABS and PETG. However, the development of advanced thermoplastic materials, such as Nylon composites reinforced with carbon fibers (Nylon-CF), requires a further investigation of the effect of the printing parameters on those advanced composites. In the current study, an in-depth correlation of all the major printing parameters (infill pattern, infill density, dual line infill and printing speed) with all the major mechanical properties (tensile strength, compressive strength and bending strength) of Nylon-CF is carried out.