Mechanical and Thermal Properties of FDM Parts Manufactured with Polyamide 12

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology which is used for prototypes, single-part production and also small batch productions. For use as a final product, it is important that the parts have good mechanical properties, high dimensional accuracy and smooth surfaces. The knowledge of the mechanical properties is very important for the design engineer when it comes to the component design. End-use products out of the FDM process have to resist applied forces. In this paper, investigations were conducted with the polymer Polyamide 12 (FDM Nylon 12) from Stratasys Inc. This polymer can be processed with three different tip sizes resulting in different layer thicknesses from 178 μm to 330 μm. Thus, the mechanical properties were determined for these layer thicknesses and for different orientations on the build platform. In addition to the mechanical properties the thermal properties (e.g. with a DSC analysis) are also investigated.