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Choosing the right kind of material to printing a given object is now increasingly difficult, as the 3D Printing marketplace sees the standard emergence of new components radically. In FDM 3D Printing , PLA and Ab muscles have historically been both main polymers used, but their initial dominance was mostly fortuitous, so there should not be any major roadblocks for other polymers to play a key role in the future of FDM.
We are now seeing new products become more popular, both pure polymers and composites. In this study, we focus on the main pure polymers that exist in the market today: PLA, ABS, PET, Nylon, TPU (Flexible) and PC. We sum up the key differences between their properties in snapshot profiles so that users can make a quick decision about the best polymer to use for their application.
Materials are usually graded along 3 classes: mechanical efficiency, visual quality, and procedure. In this full case, we further breakdown these categories to color a clearer picture of the polymer’s properties. The decision of material depends upon what the user really wants to print really, therefore we listed the main element decision criteria had a need to select a material (apart from cost and speed):
A spider web graph demonstrating the material properties that will be in comparison
Ease of printing: How easy it is to print a material: bed adhesion, max printing speed, frequency of failed prints, flow accuracy, ease to feed into the printer etc.
Visual quality: How good the finished object looks. More info on how we test it here.
Max stress: Maximum stress the object can undergo before breaking when slowly pulling on it.
Elongation at break: Maximum length the object has been stretched before breaking.
Impact resistance: Energy needed to break an object with a sudden impact.
Layer adhesion (isotropy): How good the adhesion between layers of material is. It is linked to “isotropy” (=uniformity in all directions): the better the layer adhesion, the more isotropic the object will be.
Heat resistance: Max temperature the object can sustain before softening and deforming.
We all also provide additional information that is not captured in the diagram, for one of two reasons:
They will be neither “good” nor “bad” in essence; they are just houses that are suitable for some applications and never for others, such as rigidity.
All of us don’t have a good quantitative evaluation of it, but we know costly important factor, such as humidity level of resistance or toxicity.
Every single material has been ranked over the following criteria on an one particular (low) to 5 (high) degree. These are relative grades meant for the FDM process -- they would look quite different another manufacturing technologies were considered. Using the data from Optimatter, the polymers have been placed along the different criteria viewed as:
Analysis results for all six polymers displayed in one graph.
PLA is the easiest polymer to print and provides good visual quality. It is very rigid and actually quite strong, but is very brittle.
The material profile of PLA
Pros | Cons |
Biosourced, biodegradable | Low humidity resistance |
Odorless | Can't be glued easily |
Can be post-processed with sanding paper and painted with acrylics | |
Good UV resistance |
ABS is usually picked over PLA when higher temperature resistance and higher toughness is required.
The material profile of ABS
Pros | Cons |
Can be post-processed with acetone vapors for a glossy finish | UV sensitive |
Can be post-processed with sanding paper and painted with acrylics | Odor when printing |
Acetone can also be used as strong glue | Potentially high fume emissions |
Good abrasion resistance |
PET is a slightly softer polymer that is well rounded and possesses interesting additional properties with few major drawbacks.
The material profile of PET
Pros | Cons |
Can come in contact with foods | Heavier than PLA and ABS |
High humidity resistance | |
High chemical resistance | |
Recyclable | |
Good abrasion resitance | |
Can be post-processes with sanding paper and painted with acrylics |
Nylon possesses great mechanical properties, and in particular, the best impact resistance for a non-flexible filament. Layer adhesion can be an issue, however.
The material profile of Nylon
Pros | Cons |
Good chemical resistance | Absorbs moisture |
High strength | Potentially high fume emissions |
TPU is mostly used for flexible applications, but its very high impact resistance can open for other applications.
The material profile of TPU
Pros | Cons |
Good abrasion resistance | Difficult to post process |
Good resistance to oil and grease | Can't be glued easily |
PC is the strongest material of all, and can be an interesting alternative to ABS as the properties are quite similar.
The material profile of PC
Pros | Cons |
Can be sterilized | UV sensitive |
Easy to post-process (sanding) |
Selecting the right polymer is critical to get the correct properties for a 3D published part, especially if the part contains a functional use. This article will support users find the right material depending on properties they need. However , materials suppliers also often provide combines or add additives to change the properties of the genuine polymer (e. g. adding carbon fiber to make the material stiffer). We are not addressing these types of more complex formulations in this article, you could find data on some of these items in our optimization tool for OptiMatter.
The grades given in this article happen to be for an average polymer symbolizing the general chemistry, but the overall performance will vary depending on the actual item or supplier the user purchases from.
All the data root our grades in this research was measured by THREE DIMENSIONAL Matter, with the exception of Heat Level of resistance, for which we used the glass temperature given by multiple filament suppliers.
For the sections called Additional considerations, we are using a combination of thirdparty assessments and our own findings.
The Nylon type all of us discuss in this article is Nylon 6, not Nylon 11 or 12.
Visual top quality is tested without any significant post-processing. There are ways to smoothen the prints and improve the quality of vision of a given polymer considerably (e. g. using acetone vapor on ABS).
The toxicity of 3D printing photos polymers is still not very very well understood and is a factor that may play a bigger role later on. We are basing our feedback regarding toxicity on one research by Azimi et al.