Influence of meso-structure and chemical composition on FDM 3D-printed parts

We verified that FDM ABS specimens show anisotropic mechanical properties since they vary with filament extrusion direction. Accordingly, Classical Lamination Theory (CLT) and Tsai-Hill yielding criterion were found to be well capable of predicting in-plane stiffness and strength of FDM specimens. We assessed that, varying chemical composition and filament dimensions, it is possible to tune fiber properties and fiber-to-fiber bonding and, consequently, the overall mechanical properties at macro-scale, in particular the yielding strength and the strain at failure. The experimentally obtained data are useful to calibrate mechanical models to be used with computational tools as finite element analyses.