Analysis and modelling of damage mechanism in FDM 3Dprinted Lattice structure during compression loading

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), also known as fused filament fabrication, is a widely spread 3D printing process that uses a continuous filament of a thermoplastic material. In this work, the anisotropy of cellular “open-cell” structures printed in ABS by the FDM technology is studied and a model of mechanical response up to the damage regime is tried. The present investigation starts from the analysis of the anisotropic effect due to the directional material deposition, which is preliminary studied on simple prismatic samples at various filament orientations. Then, the research goes through the observation of damage at the microscale of a sample cell structure loaded in compression, and tries to reproduce the anisotropy at both elastic and plastic regimes by FE modelling in ABAQUS© environment.