Tensile and Flexural Properties of Fused Deposition Modeling Parts Manufactured with ULTEM*9085

Generative production techniques have the advantage of manufacturing parts via an additive process without needing a forming tool. One of these additive manufacturing technologies is "Fused Deposition Modeling" (FDM). It is one of the most used additive manufacturing processes to produce prototypes and end-use parts. From a 3D-CAD data set, components and assemblies are manufactured out of thermoplastic material layer by layer by means of an additive process. An extrusion head deposits the molten thermoplastic filament to create each layer with a particular tool path. Due to the thermal fusion the material bonds with the layer beneath and solidifies. Thus a permanent bonding of two layers is formed. In this paper the mechanical data of parts, manufactured with the system Fortus 400mc from Stratasys with the material Ultem*9085 are presented. Tensile and flexural tests according to both, the ASTM and the ISO standard, are conducted. Test specimens are generated with the standard parameters of the native software in different build directions. The tests show different strength and strain characteristics that depend on the given structure as a result of the build direction. Furthermore tensile specimens according to the ASTM standard are generated with changed parameters of the native software to increase the mechanical strength properties. The results are compared to injection molded strength properties.