Fatigue behaviour of laser sintered Nylon 12 in rotating and reversed bending tests

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study into the fatigue behaviour of laser sintered Nylon 12 specimens in both reversed and rotating bending. Rotating bending tests are generally the most efficient in terms of test time, but reversed bending deformation explicitly promotes delamination, and so the main aim was to identify whether or not there was significant variation in fatigue behaviour between the two loading modes. The paper presents the first reversed bending fatigue test study on selective laser sintered Nylon parts and compares the results to fatigue behaviour from rotating bending. The results showed no significant variation in fatigue behaviour between the two loading modes and also showed an isotropic response in terms of fatigue behaviour in both test configurations.