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Updated: Jan 1, 2026

Characterizing Dissipative Elastic Metamaterials Produced by Additive Manufacturing
Published on: June 28, 2024
Elastic Asymmetry of PLA Material in FDM-Printed Parts: Considerations Concerning Experimental Characterisation for
Ma-Magdalena Pastor-Artigues1, Francesc Roure-Fernández1, Xavier Ayneto-Gubert1
1Department of Strength of Materials and Structural Engineering (RMEE), Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering (ETSEIB), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech (UPC), 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Abstract:
The objective of this research is to characterise the material poly lactic acid (PLA), printed by fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology, under three loading conditions-tension, compression and bending-in order to get data that will allow to simulate structural components. In the absence of specific standards for materials manufactured in FDM technology, characterisation is carried out based on ASTM International standards D638, D695 and D790, respectively. Samples manufactured with the same printing parameters have been built and tested; and the tensile, compressive and flexural properties have been determined. The influences of the cross-sectional shape and the specimen length on the strength and elastic modulus of compression are addressed. By analysing the mechanical properties obtained in this way, the conclusion is that they are different, are not coherent with each other, and do not reflect the bimodular nature (different behaviour of material in tension and compression) of this material. A finite element (FE) model is used to verify these differences, including geometric non-linearity, to realistically reproduce conditions during physical tests. The main conclusion is that the test methods currently used do not guarantee a coherent set of mechanical properties useful for numerical simulation, which highlights the need to define new characterisation methods better adapted to the behaviour of FDM-printed PLA.
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