Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845

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Polymer Testing
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/polytest

A systematic investigation on the minimum tensile strengths and size

effects of 3D printing polymers
Gonghe Zhang a, Qinglin Wang a, Yinxu Ni a, Pei Liu b, Fenghua Liu b, Dominique Leguillon c,
Luoyu Roy Xu a, *
a
School of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, MOE Key Laboratory of Impact and Safety Engineering, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, 315211, China
b
Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Additive Manufacturing Materials, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science, Ningbo,
Zhejiang, 315211, China
c
Institut Jean Le Rond D’Alembert, CNRS UMR7190, Sorbonne Université, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005, Paris, France

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Unlike isotropic homogenous materials, 3D printing polymers are anisotropic in terms of their strength and
Tensile strength fracture toughness properties, according to previous research. Therefore, the lowest strength must be accurately
3D printing polymer measured before the extensive application of any 3D printing materials. Certain 3D printing materials have been
Size effect
increasingly employed in large structures; therefore, the size effect of their strengths has become very important.
Anisotropy
In this work, we performed a systematic experimental investigation on the minimum strengths and size effects of
four common 3D printing polymers made by fusion deposition modeling and injection molding. Three types of
tensile specimens with very different cross-sectional areas were selected. For each material system, two types of
specimens with different printing surface angles were employed. The results from 200 specimens demonstrated
that the minimum tensile strengths in the build direction of some specimens were only 25% that of the other
directions in the same specimens, and 59% of the injection-molded specimens composed of the same material. No
general conclusion on the size effects of the tensile strengths could be made for most specimens. Only the
strengths along the build direction decreased up to 72% in two types of specific specimens if their cross-sectional
areas increased by 60 times. Although their strengths were anisotropic, the stiffness properties of the 3D printing
polymers were isotropic. Digital image correlation measurements showed that the Young’s moduli of all speci­
mens composed of the same material were similar. A dual-notch mechanics model was employed to explain the
anisotropic strengths, and a fractography analysis supported the size effect.

1. Introduction
Tensile strength is one of the most important mechanical properties
in engineering materials. However, unlike isotropic homogenous ma­
terials such as metals, 3D printing polymers are anisotropic in terms of
their strengths and fracture toughnesses, according to previous exten­
sive research, because more than one tensile strength can be measured in
the different loading directions of a single 3D printing polymer [1–20].
Therefore, a minimum tensile strength must be accurately determined
before the extensive application of any 3D printing materials. Herein, we
did not address 3D printing multi-materials. Now some 3D printing
materials have become increasingly used in large structures; therefore,
the size effect of their strengths has become important. For example, the
strengths of small specimens measured inside a laboratory would
significantly differ from the strengths of identical materials used in large
aerospace or ship structures. Moreover, the size effect of material
strengths has shown to be closely related to the defects inside the ma­
terials [21], and more defects are found inside 3D printing materials
compared to traditional materials.
The anisotropic strength issue has been extensively studied in the
past 10 years. For example, Song et al. found that 3D printing polylactic
acid (PLA) specimens exhibited three different strengths in three di­
rections, with the lowest strength along the build direction [6]. The
researchers also observed that the elastic response of the PLA tensile
specimens was approximately isotropic (same as the Young’s modulus).
Geng et al. studied 3D printing polyphenylene sulfide and reported the
anisotropic tensile and bending strengths [7]. A major issue in previous
studies was that the researchers often reported the results of one or two

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: l.roy.xu@alumni.caltech.edu (L.R. Xu).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2022.107845
Received 10 June 2022; Received in revised form 11 October 2022; Accepted 15 October 2022
Available online 21 October 2022
0142-9418/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
G. Zhang et al.
types of 3D printing polymers. Therefore, in this work, we presented a
systematic investigation into the strength variations of four common 3D
printing polymers.
Meanwhile, this work presents an extensive study into the size effect
on the strengths of 3D printing polymers, as not many studies were
found in the literature [22–26]. Wu et al. [23] employed 3D printing
plaster and PLA, and fabricated five types (sizes) of bending specimens.
Their experiments showed that the compression strengths of the plaster
specimens decreased by 46% and the bending strengths of the PLA
specimens decreased by 15% and 39% relative to two printing schemes
with increasing sizes. Elmrabet and Siegkas [22] conducted tensile and
compressive tests on three types of 3D printing PLA and thermoplastic
polyurethane specimens, resulting in the inhomogeneity of the me­
chanical properties between the large and small cross-sectional areas in
the same part. The results suggested that the 3D printing functional parts
showed significant dimensional differences between the sections, and
the mechanical properties were not necessarily homogeneous. However,
in previous studies, the size variations were not very large. Moreover,
previous studies have mainly focused on one or two material systems,
while research on the size effect requires a significant amount of
experimental data, which was a major focus in this paper.
Due to the unique additive manufacturing process, numerous print­
ing surfaces (interfaces) will be formed when using the common layer-
by-layer printing process. Hence, although our results were based on
3D printing polymers, they could be applied to other 3D printing ma­
terials, as we focused on the failures and strengths related to the inter­
layer printing surfaces. Because these interfaces formed in a specific
direction, the properties of any 3D printing materials could show some
degrees of anisotropy in their strengths.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Specimen designs
To obtain a more general outcome compared to previous research
efforts, our investigation focused on the tensile strength variations of
four types of common 3D printing polymers, namely acrylonitrile
butadiene styrene (ABS), PLA, polycarbonate (PC), and polyamide
(PA12, nylon), which were fabricated by fusion deposition modeling
(FDM), as shown in Fig. 1.
For each material system, two types of specimens with different
printing surface angles (0◦ and 90◦ ) were employed to measure the
different tensile strengths. The printing surfaces referred to the in­
terfaces between the different layers. According to solid mechanics
theory, an interface consists of an idealized surface/line without any
thickness, with interfacial strengths but no stiffness [27]. 3D printing
materials have an intrinsic build direction (perpendicular to the printing
surface); however, a reference system is needed to specify an exact
angle. As illustrated in Fig. 2(b), the specimen’s longitudinal direction
(applied loading direction) is a reference (x-axis) to determine these
Fig. 1. Illustration of the experimental plan.
2
Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845
angle relations. For mechanics analysis, it was convenient to employ the
printing surface angle (rather than the build direction), especially their
difference was 90◦ . For specimens with a printing surface angle of 90◦
(or 90◦ specimens), tensile loading was perpendicular to the printing
surface (or along the build direction). For the size effect, three types of
tensile specimens with very different cross-sectional areas (maximum
area/minimum area was around 60 times) based on the ASTM standard
D638-14 were selected. Specimen type T1 (width and thickness of its
cross-sectional area: 19 × 10 mm) was type III, T2 (width and thickness:
6 × 3 mm) was type IV, and T3 (width and thickness: 3.18 × 1 mm) was
type V, as defined by the ASTM D638 standard. The systematic specimen
design is illustrated in Fig. 1, while Fig. 2(a) shows a comparison of the
three types of specimens, and Fig. 2(c) shows the dimensions of the T2
specimen. For each material/printing surface angle/specimen type
(each strength value), at least eight identical specimens were made, and
approximately 200 total specimens were tested.
2.2. Manufacturing of the specimens
The pristine particles and the 3D printing PLA, ABS, PC, and PA12
filaments were purchased from Shenzhen eSUN Industrial Co., Ltd.,
China, where the filament diameter was 1.75 mm. The FDM 3D printer
was a Raise3D Pro3, which was produced by Shanghai Fuzhi Informa­
tion Technology Co., Ltd., China. The printing parameters are shown in
Table 1. To produce an extensive comparison, some of the injection-
molded specimens from the above four types of materials were pro­
duced by a ZHAFIR Plastics Machinery ZE 900 machine (Haitian Inter­
national Holdings Limited, China), and their sizes (based on a similar
polymer test standard in China) were similar to the sizes of the T2
specimens [5].
2.3. Tensile experiments for the strength and Young’s modulus
measurements
The thick T1 specimens were tested on an MTS 810 test frame with a
50-kN load cell, while the T2 and T3 specimens were tested on an Instron
5966 test frame with a 10-kN load cell. The displacement rate for all tests
was 1 mm/min, and the maximum loading values of all specimens were
recorded. For some selected specimens, their strain was measured by a
digital image correlation (DIC) VIC-2D system (Corelated Solutions Inc.,
USA). The Young’s modulus of each specimen was determined according
to the initial slope of its stress/strain curve, while the strength was
determined by the maximum stress recorded by the test machine. The
fracture surfaces of selected large T1 and small T3 tensile specimens
were characterized using a field emission scanning electron microscope
(SEM) FEI Quanta FEG 250.
G. Zhang et al. Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845

Fig. 2. (a) Three types of PA 12 specimens with very different cross-sectional areas, (b) definition of the printing surface angle, (c) dimensions (in mm) of the T2
specimens, according to the ASTM standard.

3.2. Anisotropic strength distributions and the minimum tensile strengths

Table 1
The FDM printing parameters of the PLA, ABS, PC, and PA12 specimens.
Fig. 3 shows all of the load-displacement curves of the 3D printing
Parameters PLA ABS PC PA12 ABS T1 specimens with the two printing surface angles. We preferred
Nozzle temperature (◦ C) 200 230 265 250 these curves to the stress-strain curves, because they were measured
Build-plate temperature (◦ C) 60 105 100 60 directly from the test machine. The initial slope of each curve was almost
Infill degree (%) 100 100 100 100 identical, demonstrating isotropic stiffness. However, the strengths of
Orientation (◦ ) 0, 90 0, 90 0, 90 0, 90
Layer thickness, t (mm) 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
these two types of specimens were very different (the difference reached
Printing speed (mm/s) 60 60 60 60 67%); therefore, the strengths of the 3D printing polymers were clearly
anisotropic. Fig. 4 shows the fracture patterns of the T1 specimens with
printing surface angles of 0◦ and 90◦ . Similar to other fractured speci­
3. Results and discussion mens composed of different materials, the 0◦ ABS specimens always had
a non-straight fracture path. However, the 90◦ specimens had consistent
3.1. Isotropic stiffness: Young’s modulus measurements straight fracture paths, demonstrating interfacial fracture because the
straight interface is a weak path [27,30].
The Young’s modulus values of the different specimens consisting of Table 3 lists all average strength values of the different materials and
four types of polymers are listed in Table 2. The specimens were specimens. The first major comparison was conducted on the T1 speci­
isotropic in nature, as the Young’s modulus values of the specimens with mens with a cross-sectional area of 190 mm2. For the printing PLA
different printing surface angles of the same materials were similar. specimens, the average strength value of the 90◦ specimens was only
Moreover, these values were close to the Young’s modulus values of the 33% of the 0◦ specimens. The situation for the printing PC specimens
injection-molded specimens composed of the same materials. The major
difference was that the Young’s moduli of the 90◦ specimens were al­
ways lower than the Young’s moduli values of the 0◦ specimens and the
injection-molding specimens. These differences were mainly caused by
the voids and other defects inside the printing materials, especially
along the interfaces (printing surfaces), as the Young’s moduli were
based on the volume average. The Young’s modulus of a body with voids
are always lower than a solid body. Therefore, the mechanical properties
of the 90◦ specimens (loading perpendicular to the printing surfaces)
need enough attention.

Table 2
Young’s modulus (GPa) measurements of the four types of polymers.
Material Printing surface angle Printing surface angle Injection
0◦ 90◦ molding

ABS 2.29 ± 0.17 2.07 ± 0.01 2.15 ± 0.14

PLA 2.99 ± 0.02 2.52 ± 0.13 3.07 ± 0.13 Fig. 3. Load-displacement curves of the T1 ABS specimens with two printing
PA12 1.29 ± 0.01 1.24 ± 0.08 1.37 ± 0.01
surface angles, showing that the Young’s modulus values were similar, but the
PC 2.13 ± 0.01 1.58 ± 0.11 2.31 ± 0.09
strengths were very different.

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G. Zhang et al. Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845

specimens.
In addition, the tensile strengths in Table 3 were comparable to the
results reported in previous papers. We mainly selected similar cross-
sectional areas and printing parameters with T2 specimens for com­
parison. For the same 0◦ and 90◦ specimens, the strengths of ABS were
27–35 MPa and 25–30 MPa [3,4], the strengths of PLA were 48–56 MP
and 21–36 MPa [6,14,16,17,20], and the strengths of PC were 29–58
MPa and 18–43 MPa [32,33].
Therefore, our major findings included: 1) the minimum tensile
strength could be measured if tensile loading acts along the build di­
rection, 2) the printing PC specimens showed a severe strength reduc­
tion, and 3) large specimens such as the T1 specimens showed a large
strength reduction. Therefore, size effect research is needed.

3.3. Size effects of the tensile strengths

Table 4 presents the variations in the tensile strengths as a function of

the cross-sectional areas of the T1, T2 and T3 specimens. No general
conclusion regarding the size effect of the tensile strengths could be
made for most specimens. However, the PLA and PC specimens with
printing angles of 90◦ showed the expected size effects, specifically, the
specimens with smaller cross-sectional areas had higher tensile
Fig. 4. Final fracture pattens of the two T1 ABS specimens with different strengths. The strength value of the PC 90◦ specimens with the smallest
printing surface angles: 0◦ (left) and 90◦ (right). The 90◦ specimens always had cross-sectional area (3.18 mm2 or 1.67%) reached 359% of the speci­
straight fracture paths. mens with the largest cross-section areas (190 mm2 or 100%), i.e., if the
specimen size increased by 60 times (from the T3 specimen to T1), the
strength decreased by 72%. A large strength variation was found
Table 3 because our specimen size variation was 60 times compared to only 10
Anisotropic strength (MPa) distributions of four types of materials (σ 0T —
times in previous research [23]. The strength values of the PLA 90◦
strength of the 0◦ specimen, σ 90 IM
T — strength of the 90 specimen, σ T — strength
◦
specimens also demonstrated the same trend, specifically, a 62%
of the injection-molded specimen).
strength reduction for the large specimens. Fig. 5 shows the variations in
Specimen type Material σ0T σ90
T σ90
T / σIM
T σ90 IM
T /σ T the size effects of the two PC and PLA 90◦ specimens. However, we could
σ0T not draw a conclusion based on these two curves, as there was no theory
T1 (area 190 ABS 41.81 27.92 67% to predict the size effect [21]. Therefore, it will be extremely important
mm2 , or
± 1.20 ± 2.70
to measure the strengths of large specimens, which will be closer to
100%) those used in the actual structural applications. Once again, specimens
PLA 47.91 15.71 33%
± 3.91 ± 2.39 with a printing surface angle of 90◦ differed from other specimens.
PA12 27.89 8.03 ± 29% Hence, in terms of the mechanical properties of the 3D printing poly­
± 1.85 2.38 mers, the tensile strengths and moduli along the build direction were the
PC 47.66 11.73 25%
most important properties to measure for any new 3D printing material.
± 0.39 ± 0.92
T2 (area ABS 39.03 26.52 68% 42.09 63%
9.47%) ± 1.82 ± 3.43 ± 0.35 3.4. Mechanics analysis
PLA 51.42 34.72 68% 55.02 63%
± 1.29 ± 5.01 ± 1.08
Because the strength is an intrinsic material property, as it can only
PA12 45.27 42.83 95% 43.68 98%
± 0.77 ± 2.31 ± 0.25 be measured, not predicted, a qualitative mechanics model was
PC 51.79 19.91 38% 33.91 59% employed in this work to explain the above anisotropic strengths. As
± 1.86 ± 1.75 ± 4.14 illustrated in Fig. 6, Xu and Leguillon [28] assumed that all rasters of the
T3 (area ABS 37.88 27.70 73% FDM specimens were in the same direction, where the Z-axis was the
1.67%) ± 1.48 ± 3.87
PLA 48.89 41.57 85%
build direction, the X-axis was along the raster direction, and the Y-axis
± 3.69 ± 5.86 was perpendicular to the raster direction. When two rasters were in
PA12 39.46 39.02 99% contact, a neck between these rasters started to form. Once a connection
± 2.06 ± 1.78 was established, the polymer chains diffused through the interface and
PC 51.13 42.15 82%
randomization occurred, which concluded the process. After the first
± 1.94 ± 2.10
layer of rasters was printing, a second layer of rasters was stacked on the
first layer. As a result, an idealized dual-notch void formed between the
was worse, as the average strength value of the 90◦ specimens was only four rasters and two layers. These notch-shaped voids were extensively
25% of the 0◦ specimens. For the smallest T3 specimens, the strength observed by previous researchers including Torrado and Roberson [4],
reduction was not severe. For example, for the printing ABS specimens, Akiyama et al. [26], and Perez et al. [9], while the ideal void shape was
the average strength of the 90◦ specimen was 73% of the 0◦ specimens. only used for modeling purposes.
For the T2 specimens, the 90◦ specimens always had lower strengths There were two notch angles, specifically, the large notch angle is
than the 0◦ specimens. Especially for the PC specimens, the average between the two rasters and a small notch angle is between the two
strength of the 90◦ specimens was only 38% of the 0◦ specimens. In layers. Because of the weight of the second layer and subsequent top
addition, the 90◦ specimens always had lower strength values than the layers, it was expected that a large notch angle would continue to in­
injection-molded specimens. Moreover, the average strength value of crease, while the small notch angle would continue to decrease and then
the 90◦ PC specimens was only 59% of the PC injection-molded stabilize. These notches were assumed to be sharp notches; thus, the
stresses at the notch tips were singular [29]. The notch angle and its

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G. Zhang et al. Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845

Table 4
Variations in the tensile strengths and cross-sectional areas of three types of specimens with two printing surface angles (strength ratio = strength/strength of the T1
specimen).
Strength values of the 0◦ specimens σ0T (MPa)

Type ABS Strength ratio PLA Strength ratio PA12 Strength ratio PC Strength ratio
T1 41.81 100% 47.91 100% 27.89 100% 47.66 100%
T2 39.03 93% 51.42 107% 45.27 162% 51.79 109%
T3 37.88 91% 48.89 102% 39.46 141% 51.13 107%
Strength values of the 90 specimens σ90
◦
T (MPa)
Type ABS Strength ratio PLA Strength ratio PA12 Strength ratio PC Strength ratio
T1 27.92 100% 15.71 100% 8.03 100% 11.73 100%
T2 26.52 95% 34.72 221% 42.83 533% 19.91 170%
T3 27.70 99% 41.57 265% 39.02 486% 42.15 359%

Hence, we could conclude that the strength along the build direction
(interlayer tensile strength or the strength of the 90◦ specimens) will
always be lower than the strengths in the other directions. This
conclusion was further verified by the recent simulations [31].
The explanations from the dual-notch void model were consistent
with recent work by Perez et al. [9], where the experimental and nu­
merical work showed that unstable brittle fracture occurred at the in­
terfaces and debonded the layers along a single plane (i.e., the printing
surface). Therefore, the final fracture pattern of the 90◦ specimens was
straight interfacial fracture compared to the 0◦ specimens, as shown in
Fig. 4. Based on the above analysis, anisotropy in the strengths was
related to not only the interfaces but also the defects inside the 3D
printing polymers. Tensile experiments conducted by Popescu, Wang
et al. Dai et al. also confirmed the above results [11,14,20]. Moreover, a
fractography analysis provided some insights of the strength size effect.

3.5. SEM analysis

Fig. 5. Tensile strengths along the build direction as a function of the three
cross-sectional areas of the 3D printing PLA and PC specimens. The areas
increased by 60 times and the strengths decreased up to 72%.
stress singular order 1-λ followed a simple relation [27]:
sin[λ(2π − ω)] + λ sin[2π − ω] = 0
where ω is the notch angle, which was 0◦ for the crack case, and the
stress singular order was − 0.5. When ω was 180◦ (a straight bar), the
stress singularity order was 0. Although the singular stresses do not exist
in reality, a theoretical high stress singular order will lead to a high
stress concentration inside a solid. Therefore, the strength of a bar with a
crack is always lower than the strength of a straight bar. According to
Krishnan and Xu [30], the stress singular order (from − 0.5 to 0) was an
increasing function of the notch angle as demonstrated by Equation (1).
The SEM images of the fracture surfaces of a PLA 90◦ T1 specimen
and a T3 specimen are shown in Fig. 7 and Fig. 8 respectively. The SEM
images in Fig. 7 show that the fracture surface morphology at the middle
position of the T1 specimen was obviously different from that at the
edge. It can be clearly seen from the middle position that most of the
fracture sites occurred at the interfaces between the filaments. The
(1)
filament diameter at the middle position has not changed after tensile
fracture, which is basically consistent with the FDM setting value of 0.2
mm. The microfracture trace indicates that only the partial filament
surface was torn after tensile fracture, which means that the interface
between the filaments was not completely bonded. The SEM image of
the specimen edge position shows that most of the fracture sites near the
edge occurred in the interior of the filament. From the edge to the
middle position, the fracture surface gradually transited from the inte­
rior of the filament to the surface of the filament. This transition in­
dicates that the interfacial bonding strength between the filaments at the

Fig. 6. Cross-sectional views of the bond formation process between the adjacent rasters, and idealized defect formation between the rasters and printing surfaces,
where ω is the notch angle.

5
G. Zhang et al. Polymer Testing 117 (2023) 107845

Fig. 7. SEM images of the tensile fracture surface of one PLA T1 specimen. 7(a) and 7(b) are the middle positions, 7(c) and 7(d) are the edge positions.

Fig. 8. SEM images of the tensile fracture surface of one PLA T3 specimen. 8(a) is the middle position and 8(b) is the edge position. 8(c) and 8(d) are enlarged views
of 8(b).

edge position was better than that at the middle position. The obvious molding. The SEM images in Fig. 8 show that there is no significant
difference between the edge and the internal interface fusion of the large difference between the fracture morphology of the small T3 specimen at
T1 specimens may be related to the melt fluidity of PLA and the tem­ the middle and edge positions, and the fusion joint between the filament
perature difference of the filament interface bonding during the FDM and filament interface was complete and uniform. Different from the

6
G. Zhang et al.
large T1 specimen, no obvious interface fracture was found in the trace
of the fractured surface. The interfacial bonding of the small specimens
was obviously better than that of the large specimens, therefore, the
tensile strengths of the small-size specimens were significantly greater
than the strengths of the large-size specimens, i.e., the size effect of the
tensile strengths exists for the PLA 90◦ specimens. However, there is no
general conclusion for other directions or materials.
4. Conclusions
Extensive tensile experiments demonstrated that the tensile strength
along the build direction was the most critical mechanical property of
common 3D printing polymers, and was always lower than the strengths
in the other directions in the same 3D printing polymers, as well as the
strengths of the injection-molded specimens composed of the same
polymers. No general conclusion on the size effects of the tensile
strengths could be made for most specimens. Only the strengths along
the build direction decreased up to 72% in the printing PLA and PC
specimens if the cross-sectional areas increased by 60 times. A dual-
notch mechanics model was employed to explain the anisotropic
strengths, and a fractography analysis supported the size effect.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Gonghe Zhang: Investigation, Writing – original draft. Qinglin
Wang: Investigation. Yinxu Ni: Investigation. Pei Liu: Investigation.
Fenghua Liu: Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review & editing.
Dominique Leguillon: Investigation. Luoyu Roy Xu: Conceptualiza­
tion, Methodology, Investigation, Supervision, Writing – original draft,
Writing – review & editing.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
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