Analysis of Glass-Filled Nylon in Laser Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing

At the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), glass bead-filled polyamide (a.k.a. nylon) (GFN) is being used frequently for functional parts and systems, built using a laser-based powder bed fusion (PBF) additive manufacturing (AM) system. Since these parts have performance requirements, it is important to understand the mechanical properties of the additively-made GFN as a function of build orientation and build parameters. In addition, the performance of the AM system used to manufacture these parts must be evaluated in order to understand its capabilities, especially in order to determine the dimensional precision and repeatability of features built with this system. This paper summarizes recent APL efforts to characterize the GFN powder, the mechanical properties of parts made with GFN, and the performance of the laser PBF machine while running GFN using an AM test artifact.