Additive manufacturing (AM), commonly known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, refers to a method of fabrication that builds components layer by layer. AM technologies have expanded rapidly during the last years, constituting an alternative to traditional manufacturing in the production of prototypes and final products [1]. Among AM technologies, fused deposition modeling (FDM) [2] is one of the most popular due to its simplicity, minimal wastage of raw material and the ability to process pieces with complex geometries.

Nowadays, there is a wide variety of common thermoplastic polymers employed in FDM, such as acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), polylactic acid (PLA), polyamide (PA) and polycarbonate (PC). Other polymers as polyethylene (PE) or polypropylene (PP) are rarely applied due to its severe shrinkage and warpage during the manufacturing. However, because of PP is actually one of the most used commercial thermoplastics in industry, it could be considered as an interesting potential candidate for FDM.

Although PP is very extended in many industrial fields, there is still a lack of knowledge about its behavior and mechanical properties after FDM processing. Only a few papers have been published about PP specimens fabricated by FDM, which are mainly focused on the study of the tensile properties. For this reason, this work is centered on the research of the compressive and flexural properties. In this sense, compression and three-point bending strength tests are carried out, in an electro-mechanical universal testing machine, with the aim to obtain and study its main mechanical magnitudes.

Acknowledgements

This work has been partially supported by the Plan Propio de Investigación 2022 of the Universidad de La Laguna through Proyectos Dirigidos por Noveles Investigadores/as (2022/20258)

References

[1] M. Attaran, Business Horizons, 2017, 60, 677-688.

[2] S. Vyavahare, S. Teraiya, D. Panghal S. Kumar, Rapid Prototyping J., 2020, 26, 176-201.