Comparative Investigation of Mechanical, Tribological and Thermo-Mechanical Properties of Commonly Used 3D Printing Materials

Abstract

In this study, it is aimed to comparatively examine tensile, thermomechanical, and adhesive wear properties of PLA (poly lactic acid), ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) and PETG (polyethylene terephthalate glycol) materials, which are the most widely used filament materials in 3D (three dimensional) printing technology. The printing process was carried out by considering the mostly preferred manufacturing parameters by the end users and the options offered by the slicing software by default. Mechanical tests were performed at three different temperatures, 25, 35 and 45 °C, according to the glass transition temperatures of the materials. Determination of tribological properties, both bottom and upper surfaces of the test samples were exposed to adhesive wear by using standard pin-on disc tester. During the tensile tests, it was observed that the most sensitive material in terms of the alteration of mechanical properties with temperature was PLA, and the most stable material was ABS. It was determined that there was a significant difference in wear volume for all tested materials, depending on whether the abraded surface was top or bottom. The variation of storage modulus values with temperature was also investigated by applying DMTA (Dynamic mechanic thermal analysis) tests to the samples.