Processing Short Fiber-reinforced Polymers in the Fused Deposition Modeling Process

By adding fibers to a polymer matrix, a reinforcement of the material can be achieved. Shortfiber-reinforced polymers can easily be processed by the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)process without major modifications to the processing machine. For instance, short fiber-reinforcedfilaments can be processed to produce short fiber-reinforced components in the FDM process. Inmany other additive manufacturing processes this is not possible at this low cost. The choice of thematrix material, fiber type, fiber length and fiber orientation have a major influence on theproperties of the produced component. In this paper, short fiber-reinforced filaments are processedby the FDM process. The processing properties and the resulting part properties are investigatedwith regard to fiber-specific influences. Additionally, the effects of different strand geometries andthus changed flow fields on the fiber orientation and mechanical part properties are investigated.