Alternate method for determining yield strength of polymer additive manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) technology offers potential cost savings, production efficiencies, and unique design features that cannot be easily achieved through traditional manufacturing. However, it is known that the final performance of an additively manufactured product can be influenced by various stages of the AM process. For example, the mechanical performance of an additively manufactured product may be influenced by build orientation, location within the processing equipment, and the process parameters utilized in fabrication. In order to understand the level of variation of the mechanical performance, multiple coupon test types are currently used during both AM process development and production of AM parts. Among those, tensile coupon testing is most commonly used. This paper documents the result of a recent investigation on tensile yield strength data reduction methods.