Investigation of a Short Carbon Fibre-Reinforced Polyamide and Comparison of Two Manufacturing Processes: Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) and Polymer Injection Moulding (PIM)

New technologies are offering progressively more effective alternatives to traditional ones. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is gaining importance in fields related to design, manufacturing, engineering and medicine, especially in applications which require complex geometries. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is framed within AM as a technology in which, due to their layer-by-layer deposition, thermoplastic polymers are used for manufacturing parts with a high degree of accuracy and minimum material waste during the process. The traditional technology corresponding to FDM is Polymer Injection Moulding, in which polymeric pellets are injected by pressure into a mould using the required geometry. The increasing use of PA6 in Additive Manufacturing makes it necessary to study the possibility of replacing certain parts manufactured by injection moulding with those created using FDM. In this work, PA6 was selected due to its higher mechanical properties in comparison with PA12. Moreover, its higher melting point has been a limitation for 3D printing technology, and a further study of composites made of PA6 using 3D printing processes is needed. Nevertheless, analysis of the mechanical response of standardised samples and the influence of the manufacturing process on the polyamide’s mechanical properties needs to be carried out. In this work, a comparative study between the two processes was conducted, and conclusions were drawn from an engineering perspective.