Evaluation of mechanical properties of polylactic acid and photopolymer resin processed by 3D printer fused deposition modeling and digital light processing at cryogenic temperature

3D printing has the advantage of being able to process various types of parts by layering materials. In addition to these advantages, 3D printing technology allows models to be processed quickly without any special work that can be used in different fields to produce workpieces for various purposes and shapes. This paper deals to not only increase the utilization of 3D printing technology, but also to revitalize 3D printing technology in applications that require similar cryogenic environments. The goal of this study is to identify the mechanical properties of polylactic acid and photopolymer resin processed by Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Digital Light Processing (DLP) respectively. The entire process is meticulously examined, starting from getting the thermal contraction using an extensometer. A uniaxial tensile test is employed, which enables to obtain the mechanical properties of the samples at both room temperature (RT) and cryogenic temperature of 77 K. As the results, photopolymer resin exhibited higher tensile properties than polylactic acid at RT. However, at cryogenic temperatures (77 K), the photopolymer resin became brittle and failure occurred due to thermal contraction, while polylactic acid demonstrated superior tensile properties. Therefore, polylactic acid is more suitable for lower temperatures.