Comparative mechanical analysis of polymers made by SLA, FDM, and injection

ABSTRACT The validation stage is fundamental for implementation process of any project. Regarding the validation of automotive headlamps and rearlamps, most components must be obtained by thermoplastic injection, which becomes costly due to the necessity of acquire the tooling, requiring time and high costs to adjust the manufacturing injection molds. In the pursuit of maximizing the product validation process, attention is drawn to additive manufacturing (AM), focusing on the thermoplastic parts printing process by Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) and Stereolithography (SLA). With this, it would be possible to obtain critical components for the project, integrating them into the product assembly, and performing the necessary tests. This work evaluates the results of mechanical tests performed on specimens obtained by SLA and FDM when compared with the results obtained from injected specimens. Therefore, it was possible to observe a good retention of mechanical properties from AM processing methods, when subject to tensile tests the FDM specimens present a reduction of around 1.61% and 5.33% in relation to yield strength and modulus of elasticity, with less deformation than the plastic injected specimens, and the SLA specimens present more significant reductions in these same proprieties (13.12% and 22.96%), but with a better ductile behavior.