Annotation This article examines the study of strength properties of polymer composite material, based on 3D-printed frame produced by FDM technology. The printing material is ABS plastic (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). After the printing samples frames were soaked in pure epoxy resin with various hardeners. Subsequent curing went in two modes. After that, tensile tests were performed. The strength of impregnated, non-impregnated (clean frame) samples and samples made of pure resin was compared. Tests have shown that the strength of impregnated samples exceeds the strength of non-impregnated ones, but obtained strength value of impregnated samples were far from the expected theoretical values. It was found that low strength is associated with poor quality of the impregnation.

This paper offers a method for increasing the strength of FDM 3D printed parts by impregnation in a vacuum chamber in an environment of an epoxy compound with a long lifetime. We investigate the impact of the duration of impregnation and the internal geometry of the part being impregnated on the impregnation degree, expressed in the absence of cavities inside the material. The experimental samples are cylinders made of PLA plastic, the impregnation is carried out in an epoxy resin-based compound with PEPA hardener. The use of this strengthening technology may be useful for expanding the scope of FDM 3D printing from prototyping, being currently the most common application, to manufacturing parts for actually functional structures, which, unlike prototypes, carry load while in use, and therefore need increased strength.

Annotation. The paper discusses a method of increasing the strength of 3D-printed structures made by the fused deposition modelling process, which consists in vacuum impregnation of printed products in a compound based on epoxy resin. Studied the number of pores in samples obtained by this method depending on the percentage of 3D printing filling and direction of layers relative to the axis of the samples. The porosity of the samples was determined by comparing the theoretical ideal density with the experimental value determined using the hydrostatic weighing method. As a result, it was found that the porosity of the samples lays in the range from 17 to 18.5%. It was also found that with increasing percentage of filling the porosity of the samples increases. It has been suggested that this dependence is associated with a complication of the processes of air release from samples during the impregnation.