Extrusion 3D printing: a comparison of flexible filaments

White paper introduction

Recently, many flexible filaments have been introduced to the material extrusion printing additive manufacturing market, greatly expanding the range of parts that can be made with 3D printers. The objective of this white paper is to compare the mechanical properties of parts fabricated by Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) using several flexible filament feedstocks.

Several standard material mechanical tests were conducted, including tensile, flexure, and impact resistance, as well as more specialized tests such as compression set, Rossflex, Bounce-back, and Snap-back tests, which are useful for sports and athletic applications. These data are summarized here to help end users, and to serve as a guide to find the right materials for new applications for parts built using FFF, specifically where highly flexible, durable, and high energy returning materials are desired.

This white paper provides a detailed, 3D printed, mechanical data comparison of the most well-known flexible 3D printing materials with newly developed Pebax® TPE materials. The results presented are to help end users to develop new 3D printing applications for FFF parts and to identify new uses in existing applications.