Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Materials for 3D Printing of Ankle Foot Orthoses

The article presents analysis of mechanical properties of specimens fabricated by fused deposition modelling (FDM). The four of considered materials are the well-known 3D printing filaments i.e., polylactide (PLA), Nylon 12 (PA12), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PET-G). The other four materials considered are carbon-fiber composites not described in the literature, i.e. polylactide with carbon fiber (PLACF), Nylon 12 with carbon fiber (PA12-CF), acrylonitrile butadiene styrene with carbon fiber (ABS-CF), polyethylene terephthalate glycol with carbon fiber (PETG-CF). The paper describes how the specimens were designed, printed, subjected to static tensile tests and static bending tests, and examined using microscopy. The obtained data uses to select the optimum material for the rapid manufacturing of lower limb orthoses. Carbon composites were found to have better mechanical properties of their base material, but the fabrication of composite samples is much more time consuming, for the reason that the manufacturing process is not stable.