Microscopic Investigation on Material Stucture of Broken Additively Manufactured Parts

In spite of its complexitiy and difficulties in measuring it, fracture can reveal a high amount of information on material structure and properties. Microstructure of additive manufactured parts is studied in this work. Standard impact test parts were manufactured on OBJET EDEN 350V machine in three different orientation, and they were broken by a Charpy impact test machine. Different surfaces of broken parts were studied with an electron microscope. High variety of structures were observed, and explained by technological aspects of manufacturing system, and material properties. It is shown, that material is surprisingly brittle. Microscopic study pointed out that microstructure is definitely anisotropic.