Anisotropic Mechanical Properties of Rapid Prototyping Parts Fabricated by Stereolithography

Stereolithography (SLA)-manufactured parts behave with anisotropic properties due to the varying interface orientations generated by the layer-based manufacturing process. Part build orientation is a very important factor of anisotropic mechanical properties. In this paper, the build orientation experiment was designed to study the anisotropic behaviour of the mechanical properties of the SLA parts based on the orientation relationship between the force and the layer. The results show that there are obvious brittle characteristics on the fracture surface of the specimens and microcracks perpendicular to the direction of the layer distributed on the side of the fracture. The mechanical properties under brittle fracture have different degrees of sensitivity to the build orientation. Among all the build orientations, whether a specimen is built flat or on an edge shows obvious difference in tensile strength, and the relative range distribution reaches 35%. The changes in elastic modulus and the elongation at break are the most obvious in different angles relative to the XY plane, and the relative range distribution reaches 62% and 56% respectively. In all the build orientations designed, the tensile strength is the largest when it is placed on the edge at 0 degrees with Y-axis in the XY plane, the elastic modulus is the largest when it was placed vertically, and the elongation at break is the largest when it is placed flat at 45 degrees with Y-axis in the XY plane.