A Novel Production Method of Polymer Bolts and the Effects of the Printing Orientation on Tensile and Shear Strength of the 3D Printed Bolts

Abstract

Lightweight structures are one of the most studied topics today. Many metal machine elements can be produced from lightweight polymer materials with 3D printer technology. In this study a novel manufacturing method is proposed for the polymer bolts and the effects of the printing directions on the tensile and shear strength are investigated experimentally. Firstly the bolt shafts are produced FDM method by using 3D printer for different print orientations and the final diameters of the bolt shafts are determined by the turning process. A special apparatus is designed and manufacture for threader tool. The screw pitches are opened by using this special apparatus with threader tool. After the manufacturing process, the performance of the produced tensile and shear test samples are defined by using tensile and shear tests. A special tensile test apparatus is also developed in this study. It is seen that the printing orientation has great effects on the tensile and shear durability of the bolts. It has been determined that the strength of the bolts produced with a production angle of 0º is the highest, and the strength of the bolts produced with 45º is the lowest.