Comparisons of Bending Stiffness of 3D Printed Samples of Different Materials
3D printing technology has become more affordable than ever before. Today 3D printers are not only used for making prototypes but are also being used to make good quality 3D parts for different purposes. A wide variety of filament materials are used in the market. Finding bending stiffness of different plastic filaments is the particular interest in the current study. The purpose of the project is to investigate the bending stiffness of different 3D printed beam samples. A series of samples for performing bending tests were designed using a solid modeling tool. These samples were printed with four different plastic filaments on a 3D printer in the engineering Lab of Southern Arkansas University. The samples were tested for flexural stiffness (bending) using a materials testing system. A popular 3-point bending test was conducted for this purpose. The force vs. deflection data was obtained to obtain the flexural stiffness of the beam samples. The results were discussed in detail in the result section of this paper.