Investigation of the Effect of Printing Parameters on the Mechanical Strength of Parts Printed with Carbon Fiber Reinforced Filaments

Additive manufacturing technology is a rapidly expanding manufacturing method today due to its ability to directly transition from the design phase to the manufacturing process and its fast/flexible production capabilities. Among the various additive manufacturing technologies, FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) is widely preferred because of its wide variety of materials and low equipment costs. The mechanical properties, production time and cost per part of parts manufactured using the FDM method are significantly affected by processing conditions. This directly depends on the printing parameters such as infill density and infill pattern determined in the slicing software. Infill density is a fundamental parameter determining the void ratio in the internal structure of the part; increasing infill density increases mechanical strength while extending production time, while low infill density results in lighter parts that can be produced in a shorter time. In recent years, carbon fiber reinforced polymer filaments have been developed to improve the mechanical performance of functional parts. In this study, the effects of different infill patterns and pattern orientations on tensile and impact strength of samples produced using FDM technology with carbon fiber reinforced polyamide (CFR-PA612) filament were investigated experimentally. The obtained data show that the internal filling geometry and filling ratio have a decisive effect on mechanical strength.