(38f) Improved Interlayer Adhesion in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Printed Parts

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the most used Additive Manufacturing (AM) methods, mainly because of its low cost and minimal pre and post processing requirements. However, FDM printed parts exhibit poor mechanical properties, which result from the existence of porosity and a residual stress build-up because of rapid heating and cooling cycles between the extruder and the previously deposited layers. Consequently, FDM printed parts show poor interlayer adhesion, especially in the Z-orientation, leading to problems such as delamination and dimensional instability, greatly reducing the print quality. Insufficient adhesion between successive layers renders FDM printed parts much weaker than the traditional injection molded parts.

In this study, the effect of printing parameters, namely nozzle temperature, layer thickness and volume composition of the filament is investigated on the tensile and flexural properties of FDM printed parts. High Throughput Mechanical Analysis (HTMech) is also used to determine the tensile properties of single and bi-layer films, produced via solvent casting. The HTMech can conduct rapid tensile testing, generating a large number of data points on each sample. Results obtained will be discussed.