Influence of filament angle orientation on the dynamic characteristics of additively-manufactured beams

Three-dimensional printing provides design flexibility, resulting in shorter product development lifetime as prototypes can be rapidly produced. The most common commercially adopted method for 3D printing is Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). While the advantages for FDM are apparent, a variation of mechanical, thermal, and dynamic properties arises in FDM components. To gain deeper insight into the dynamical properties of FDM parts, this study investigates a cantilever beam manufactured using a commercially available filament and printer. All printing parameters are kept constant, aside from varying the filament angle, measured from the major axis of the beam. Four cases of varying filament angle orientation are considered to quantify the dynamic response of the systems. Further, duplicates of each beam are manufactured and compared. Experimental results are conducted and analyzed to characterize the dynamical responses of the beams. The free vibration results confirm uncertainty of FDM parts by uncovering inconsistent dynamic properties between identically printed beams. The results of the pseudo-random vibration excitation indicate that varying responses in all system's axes are observed for varying filament angle orientations. It is also demonstrated that softening nonlinearity for the first mode of vibration is activated for all additively-manufactured beams which is not consistent with typical isotropic responses. Additionally, an explanation on the interaction between the geometric, inertial, and other present nonlinearities is explored and discussed. The outcome of this work shows the strong dependence of additively-manufactured systems to the orientation of the filament angle and their dynamical responses and hence, the need for vibratory characterization for each sample unlike conventional systems.