Mechanical Characterization and Modeling of GF Reinforced PA Built by AM

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is an emerging technology with the greatest potential impact on many engineering applications. Among the AM technologies, material extrusion is particularly interesting for plastic components due to its versatility and cost effectiveness. There is, however, a limited knowledge of design methods to predict the mechanical strength of parts built by material extrusion. The materials are polymers, sometimes also reinforced, and deposited in layers like in laminated composites. Therefore, the mechanical behavior, and strength, can be characterized and modeled with methods already known for composite materials. Such tools are the classical lamination theory (CLT) and the failure criteria for composites. In the paper data from simple tensile tests on layered AM samples built by material extrusion have been tested to demonstrate the feasibility of modeling with the mentioned tools, and the material properties for predicting stiffness and strength of components built with that technique are identified.