- Joined
- Sep 3, 2019
- Messages
- 487
- Reaction score
- 322
Hi everyone,
I've been flying 3D printed fincans and nosecones and whatnot, slowly working my way up the power ladder. Memorial day weekend, I flew a J450DM with a printed monolithic fincan/MMT with zero issues (see pic below). I want to switch filaments from what I have been flying (~$60/kg, Tough PLA from Matterhackers) to something less expensive (PETG for $30/kg).
I'm a materials engineer and have access to a mechanical testing lab, so I'm thinking about putting together a "proper" mechanical test program to determine how the properties look for different materials. I have a plan, but wondering if people could comment on things they'd be interested in...not that I'll do everything, but I'll do what I can. I'll report out the results to everyone here. I have access to a universal tensile/compression machine, 200 pound capacity.
The plan:
1) vertically print tensile bars at a variety temperatures and identify the temperature that provides the optimum tensile strength for each filament - vertical print to put weakest plane in tension
2) using that best temp for each filament, print tensile bars both vertically and horizontally at a variety of number of solid outlines and infill %'s
3) same temp for each filament, print hollow cylinders with a variety of conditions and test in compression
4) report out
Pretty simple. Thoughts? Am I missing anything that would be helpful? The biggest one I can think is impact toughness, but I don't have means of testing that. Also perhaps notch sensitivity.
Thanks!
I've been flying 3D printed fincans and nosecones and whatnot, slowly working my way up the power ladder. Memorial day weekend, I flew a J450DM with a printed monolithic fincan/MMT with zero issues (see pic below). I want to switch filaments from what I have been flying (~$60/kg, Tough PLA from Matterhackers) to something less expensive (PETG for $30/kg).
I'm a materials engineer and have access to a mechanical testing lab, so I'm thinking about putting together a "proper" mechanical test program to determine how the properties look for different materials. I have a plan, but wondering if people could comment on things they'd be interested in...not that I'll do everything, but I'll do what I can. I'll report out the results to everyone here. I have access to a universal tensile/compression machine, 200 pound capacity.
The plan:
1) vertically print tensile bars at a variety temperatures and identify the temperature that provides the optimum tensile strength for each filament - vertical print to put weakest plane in tension
2) using that best temp for each filament, print tensile bars both vertically and horizontally at a variety of number of solid outlines and infill %'s
3) same temp for each filament, print hollow cylinders with a variety of conditions and test in compression
4) report out
Pretty simple. Thoughts? Am I missing anything that would be helpful? The biggest one I can think is impact toughness, but I don't have means of testing that. Also perhaps notch sensitivity.
Thanks!