Effect of layer and raster orientation on bending properties of 17-4 PH printed via material extrusion additive manufacturing technology

Material Extrusion (MEX) is one of the most popular Additive Manufacturing technologies. Over the years, the material portfolio has expanded and nowadays, it covers metals such as stainless steels, copper and titanium alloys. The mechanical behaviour of metal parts realized by MEX is of great interest to understand both the potentialities and the limits of the technology. In the present work, a commercial filament of 17-4 PH stainless steel was used as feedstock material to realize four groups of bending specimens obtained by varying the printing direction and the infill line strategy. The main goal of the paper was to evaluate the effect of the above-mentioned factors on the flexural properties. With this purpose, a three-points bending test was performed and results were analysed using the one-way ANOVA approach. The density of the parts was also evaluated.