Mechanical characterization of FDM parts through instrumented flat indentation

Evaluating local mechanical properties of parts made by additive manufacturing processes can improve the deposition conditions. This study proposes a non-destructive characterization test to determine the mechanical behavior of fused deposition modeling (FDM) components. Indentation and compression tests were conducted on samples produced by the FDM process, which were created by varying the material flow during the deposition. An empirical relationship was determined between yield strength determined through compression and indentation tests. R2 = 0.92 characterized the correlation between the compression and indentation test. The results indicated that both the yield strength measured through compression tests and that measured by the indentation tests increased linearly with the density of the components. Indentation tests provided more insights concerning the tested surface’s local characteristics than the compression test.