Effect of section thickness on cavitation behaviour of selective laser sintered polyamide 12

Abstract

The present study focuses on the results of cavitation resistance of samples obtained by the Selective Laser Sintering technology. All samples are made from Nylon 12 - Polyamide 12 powder, known as PA2200 in the industry, produced by EOS GmbH. The powder, which has been used for building of samples, represent mixture of 50% new powder and 50% of the recycled powder. In the work, samples with different section thicknesses (0.4mm; 0.8mm and 1.0mm) were subjected to the ultrasonically induced cavitation test method to investigate the effect of geometry on their cavitation behaviour. The change in mass loss during different cavitation times was measured on the tested samples. The morphology of cavitation damage was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). Results obtained in this paper have shown that section thickness of the samples have a significant influence on the cavitation resistance. The highest cavitation resistance was obtained for the samples with 0.4mm thickness.