Effect of Automotive Fluids on Additive Manufactured Components for the Automotive Industry

The additive manufacturing faces nowadays a large development at all the methods included. One of this method´s is FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling). An identified limitation of FDM is associated to the printing process itself, which brings porosity to the components. The present work presents a study of permeability changes in components produced by FDM when in contact with automotive fluids, both diesel fuel and coolant fluids. To achieve this goal, laboratorial tests were carried out in components produced in different polymeric materials, namely, ABS, PC and PC-ABS. The components were coated by a layer of epoxydic resin to reduce the fluid absorption, and were merged in diesel fuel during different periods, at the regular temperatures observed on a running automotive. Both mass measurements and some mechanical laboratorial tests were performed, before and after the immersion, in coated and non-coated components.