Testing of glued joints on plastic parts manufactured using FFF technology

Abstract

The article focuses on the testing of glued joints of plastic parts manufactured by 3D rapid prototyping, using the Fused Filament Fabrication technology. The first part of the article describes the suitability of using a glued joint. Then follows a brief description of the plastic materials used for the manufacturing of the testing samples. The materials include not only the common types, such as Polylactide, Polyethylene Terephthalate, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene, but also Thermoplastic Polyurethane, which has a high elasticity and is usually described as a flexible material. The main section of the article deals with the testing of glued joints on a tensometric machine, which produces stress-strain curves. The shear strength of the joints is evaluated. For each material, multiple samples are prepared with different orientation of individual layers created by the 3D printing process. The impact of the orientation of the layers on the resulting strength of the glued joint is also evaluated. The final section of the article presents comparison and evaluation of the results-analyses of cracks, the impact of the orientation of the layers and the impact of individual materials. The experiment proved the independence of the orientation of the layers on the strength of the glued joint. It was also found out during the experiment that the use of a common adhesive on a flexible material was unsuitable.