Mechanical properties of polyamide 12 parts made by powder bed fusion (additive manufacturing)

Industrial use of additive manufacturing (often referred to as 3D printing) for end-use parts in polymer materials is increasing. There are many recent developments regarding materials, machines and software for numerical simulations. However, there are still challenges, e.g., when it comes to predictable and repeatable mechanical properties. One important category of additive manufacturing processes for polymer materials is powder bed fusion (PBF). PBF uses thermoplastic polymer materials and the manufactured parts have quite good mechanical properties. The cost per manufactured part is among the lowest for additive manufacturing processes, but the machine cost is high. In PBF, powder particles (with diameter