Characterization of Material Behavior of the Fused Deposition Modeling Processed Parts

In the present research, one of the additive manufacturing techniques, fused deposition modeling (FDM) fabricated parts are considered for investigation of their material behavior. The FDM process is a layer upon layer deposition of a material to build three dimensional parts and such parts behave as laminated composite structures. Each layer of the part acts as a unidirectional fiber reinforced lamina, which is treated as an orthotropic material. The mesostructure of a part fabricated via fused deposition modeling process is accounted for in the investigation of its mechanical behavior. The finite element (FE) procedure for characterization of a material constitutive law for the FDM processed parts is presented. In the analysis, the mesostructure of the part obtained via FDM process is replicated in the finite element models. Finite element models of tensile specimens are developed with mesostructure that would be obtained from FDM process, then uniaxial tensile test simulations are conducted. The elastic moduli of a lamina are calculated from the linear analysis and the strength parameters are obtained from the nonlinear finite element analysis. The present work provides a FE methodology to find elastic moduli and strength parameters of a FDM processed part by accounting its mesostructure in the analysis.