Description:
<jats:p>Introduction. The additive manufacturing method implies the emergence of emergent properties in the final product, not inherent in the original elements of the system individually. Performance properties of products obtained by FDM-printing are defined not only by the material properties, but also by printing parameters — nozzle and table temperature, layer thickness, printing speed, the direction of laying layers, their relative positioning, etc. Thus, when designing 3D-printed polymer products with the required characteristics one should consider the material – printing parameters system together. The results of the study of the effect of sorption characteristics of 3D-printed PETG plastic samples made by FDM-printing on their elastic-strength properties are presented.

Materials and methods. Three groups of FDM-printed PETG 3D specimens were studied. Collection, preprocessing, analysis, statistical processing and visualization of the data were performed using Python programming language in an interactive Jupyter Notebook development environment.

Results. It was found that the moisture content of 3D-printed polymer samples could be conventionally divided into the superstructural and microstructural levels. A comparison of moisture content limits in different moisture saturation conditions shows that the former exceeds the latter by 2 to 6 times depending on the specimen printing parameters. Moisture content of superstructure level has no statistically significant (for α = 0.01) effect on the ultimate tensile strength of the samples, regardless of the printing parameters of the samples. The moisture sorbed by the level of substructure presumably can act as a stress concentrator preventing the free flow of specimens beyond the ultimate tensile strength, which is reflected in the reduction of elongation at rupture.

Conclusions. The obtained results allow taking into account the influence of moisture state on the elastic-strength properties of 3D printed articles and structures on the basis of PETG-plastics. This, in its turn, contributes to more accurate prediction of their behavior under real operating conditions.</jats:p>