Selective Laser Sintered Pipe Specimen Under Torsional Load: Experimental Investigations and Material Modeling

Pipes and hoses in automotive and aircraft design engineering represent the central application area for polyamide 12 (PA12). This is due to its exceptionally high abrasion resistance, high fatigue resistance, and good chemical resistance. The manufacturing process of selective laser sintering (SLS) brings a unique design freedom that allows the manufacturing of tube specimens in geometries (with cavities) that would not be possible to produce using conventional manufacturing processes. Here we present a remarkable tube specimen for torsion and tension/compression experiments, which has been specially adapted to the SLS manufacturing process. The novel specimen geometry manufactured with the SLS process provides reproducible torsion test results. The torsion experiments provide information on the shear behavior of the polyamide 12, considering its viscoelastic properties. The contribution finishes with a first modeling approach that predicts the viscoelastic properties of the PA12 material.