Effect of Raster Orientation on the Mechanical Response of FDM-Printed PLA, PETG, and PA/Nylon: Tensile Characterization, ANSYS Calibration, and Preliminary Wing-Flow Screening

Abstract

Fused deposition modeling (FDM), a material-extrusion additive-manufacturing process, produces polymer components whose mechanical response depends on deposited-road architecture, inter-road and interlayer bonding, polymer chemistry, thermal history, voids, environmental conditioning, and measurement definitions. This study develops a traceable experimental-computational workflow that couples ASTM D638 Type I tensile characterization of PLA, PETG, and PA/Nylon printed with 0/90° and ±45° raster configurations to ANSYS multilinear isotropic-hardening calibration and a preliminary force-level screening of a lattice-integrated aircraft-wing prototype. The ±45° configuration increased mean ultimate tensile strength (UTS) from 21.63 ± 6.63 to 52.92 ± 3.10 MPa for PLA (+144.7%), from 22.62 ± 2.83 to 38.93 ± 1.02 MPa for PETG (+72.1%), and from 19.96 ± 1.96 to 41.36 ± 1.59 MPa for PA/Nylon (+107.2%). Young's modulus increased for PLA (+61.7%) and PETG (+9.4%) but decreased for PA/Nylon (-25.5%), while the recorded displacement at break and the software-defined ACurva metric increased in all three material families. For the ANSYS calibration, PLA2 and PETG2 showed close paired-row agreement (MAPE 1.33%, R² = 0.9994 and MAPE 1.51%, R² = 0.9992, respectively). PA2 showed weaker partial-range agreement (MAPE 12.58%, R² = 0.6415), although the peak of the complete prepared PA2 curve differed from the experimental mean by only -4.49%. In the wing-flow screening, Lattice drag magnitude exceeded Solid drag in all nine workbook-labeled material-velocity cases; lift increased in eight cases and decreased by 30.17% for the PLA-labeled case at 25 m/s. The principal contribution is a reproducible, scope-controlled bridge from specimen-level tensile records to constitutive input and preliminary component force comparison, with explicit boundaries for subsequent structural, manufacturing, and physical validation.