Additive Manufacturing of CFRP Composites Using Fused Deposition Modeling: Effects of Process Parameters

Author(s):  
Fuda Ning ◽  
Weilong Cong ◽  
Zhenyuan Jia ◽  
Fuji Wang ◽  
Meng Zhang

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the attractive additive manufacturing (AM) technologies for rapid prototyping with complex structures in a short timeframe. Thermoplastics are currently used as common feedstocks to fabricate prototypes in FDM process. However, FDM-fabricated pure thermoplastic parts cannot be used as load-bearing parts in the actual applications due to their limited tensile strength. Such condition could be improved by developing carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites using FDM for potential industrial end users. It is crucial that proper selections of FDM process parameters during fabricating CFRP composite parts could ensure the part quality and properties. However, the effects of FDM process parameters on the tensile properties of CFRP composites have not been explored. In this paper, CFRP composite specimens with 5 wt% carbon fiber content were fabricated using a FDM machine. Tensile testing was conducted to obtain the tensile properties. The effects of process parameters (including infill speed, nozzle temperature, and layer thickness) on the tensile properties of FDM-fabricated CFRP composite parts were investigated.

Author(s):  
Fuda Ning ◽  
Weilong Cong ◽  
Junhua Wei ◽  
Shiren Wang ◽  
Meng Zhang

Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies have been successfully applied in various applications. Fused deposition modeling (FDM), one of popular AM techniques, is most widely used method for manufacturing of plastic materials. Due to the poor strength properties of pure plastic materials, there is a critical need to improve mechanical properties for FDM-fabricated pure plastic parts. One of the possible methods is adding reinforced materials (such as carbon fibers) into plastic materials to form carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) composites. The investigation in this paper is going to test if the properties of CFRP composites part will be enhanced compared with pure plastic part made by FDM. There are three major steps in this paper including producing thermoplastic matrix CFRP composites filaments extruded after blending plastic pellets and carbon fiber powder, printing parts in FDM process, and conducting tensile test. Effects of carbon fiber content and length on the mechanical properties (tensile strength, Young’s modulus, toughness, ductility, and yield strength) of specimens are investigated. This investigation will also provide guidance for future investigations of fabricating thermoset matrix CFRP composites by AM techniques.


2021 ◽  
pp. 089270572110530
Author(s):  
Nagarjuna Maguluri ◽  
Gamini Suresh ◽  
K Venkata Rao

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is a fast-expanding additive manufacturing technique for fabricating various polymer components in engineering and medical applications. The mechanical properties of components printed with the FDM method are influenced by several process parameters. In the current work, the influence of nozzle temperature, infill density, and printing speed on the tensile properties of specimens printed using polylactic acid (PLA) filament was investigated. With an objective to achieve better tensile properties including elastic modulus, tensile strength, and fracture strain; Taguchi L8 array has been used for framing experimental runs, and eight experiments were conducted. The results demonstrate that the nozzle temperature significantly influences the tensile properties of the FDM printed PLA products followed by infill density. The optimum processing parameters were determined for the FDM printed PLA material at a nozzle temperature of 220°C, infill density of 100%, and printing speed of 20 mm/s.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 2406
Author(s):  
Emmanuel U. Enemuoh ◽  
Stefan Duginski ◽  
Connor Feyen ◽  
Venkata G. Menta

The application of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) additive manufacturing process has increased in the production of functional parts across all industries. FDM is also being introduced for industrial tooling and fixture applications due to its capabilities in building free-form and complex shapes that are otherwise challenging to manufacture by conventional methods. However, there is not yet a comprehensive understanding of how the FDM process parameters impact the mechanical behavior of engineered products, energy consumption, and other physical properties for different material stocks. Acquiring this information is quite a complex task, given the large variety of possible combinations of materials–additive manufacturing machines–slicing software process parameters. In this study, the knowledge gap is filled by using the Taguchi L27 orthogonal array design of experiments to evaluate the impact of five notable FDM process parameters: infill density, infill pattern, layer thickness, print speed, and shell thickness on energy consumption, production time, part weight, dimensional accuracy, hardness, and tensile strength. Signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio analysis and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were performed on the experimental data to quantify the parameters’ main effects on the responses and establish an optimal combination for the FDM process. The novelty of this work is the simultaneous evaluation of the effects of the FDM process parameters on the quality performances because most studies have considered one or two of the performances alone. The study opens an opportunity for multiobjective function optimization of the FDM process that can be used to effectively minimize resource consumption and production time while maximizing the mechanical and physical characteristics to fit the design requirements of FDM-manufactured products.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (7) ◽  
pp. 1107
Author(s):  
Jing Tian ◽  
Run Zhang ◽  
Jiayuan Yang ◽  
Weimin Chou ◽  
Ping Xue ◽  
...  

Based on additive manufacturing of wood flour and polyhydroxyalkanoates composites using micro-screw extrusion, device and process parameters were evaluated to achieve a reliable printing. The results show that the anisotropy of samples printed by micro-screw extrusion is less obvious than that of filament extrusion fused deposition modeling. The type of micro-screw, printing speed, layer thickness, and nozzle diameter have significant effects on the performance of printed samples. The linear relationship between the influencing parameters and the screw speed is established, therefore, the performance of printed products can be controlled by the extrusion flow rate related to screw speed.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debashis Mishra ◽  
Anil Kumar Das

PurposeThe purpose of the experimental investigation was to optimize the process parameters of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The optimization of the process was performed to identify the relationship between the chosen factors and the tensile strength of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and carbon fiber polylactic acid (PLA) thermoplastic material, FDM printed specimens. The relationship was demonstrated by using the linear experimental model analysis, and a prediction expression was established. The developed prediction expression can be used for the prediction of tensile strength of selected thermoplastic materials at a 95% confidence level.Design/methodology/approachThe Taguchi L9 experimental methodology was used to plan the total number of experiments to be performed. The process parameters were chosen as three at three working levels. The working range of chosen factors was the printing speed (60, 80 and 100mm/min), 40%, 60% and 80% as the infill density and 0.1mm, 0.2mm and 0.3mm as the layer thickness. The fused deposition modeling process parameters were optimized to get the maximum tensile strength in FDM printed ABS and carbon fiber PLA thermoplastic material specimens.FindingsThe optimum condition was achieved by the process optimization, and the desired results were obtained. The maximum desirability was achieved as 0.98 (98%) for the factors, printing speed 100mm/min, infill density 60mm and layer thickness 0.3mm. The strength of the ABS specimen was predicted to be 23.83MPa. The observed strength value was 23.66MPa. The maximum desirability was obtained as 1 (100%) for the factors, printing speed 100mm/min, infill density 60mm and layer thickness 0.2mm. The strength of the carbon fiber PLA specimen was predicted to be 26.23MPa, and the obtained value was 26.49MPa.Research limitations/implicationsThe research shows the useful process parameters and their suitable working conditions to print the tensile specimens of the ABS and carbon fiber PLA thermoplastics by using the fused deposition modeling technique. The process was optimized to identify the most influential factor, and the desired optimum condition was achieved at which the maximum tensile strength was reported. The produced prediction expression can be used to predict the tensile strength of ABS and carbon fiber PLA filaments.Practical implicationsThe results obtained from the experimental investigation are useful to get an insight into the FDM process and working limits to print the parts by using the ABS and carbon fiber PLA material for various industrial and structural applications.Social implicationsThe results will be useful in choosing the suitable thermoplastic filament for the various prototyping and structural applications. The products that require freedom in design and are difficult to produce by most of the conventional techniques can be produced at low cost and in less time by the fused deposition modeling technique.Originality/valueThe process optimization shows the practical exposures to state an optimum working condition to print the ABS and carbon fiber PLA tensile specimens by using the FDM technique. The carbon fiber PLA shows better strength than ABS thermoplastic material.


Author(s):  
Pravin R. Kubade ◽  
Hrushikesh B. Kulkarni ◽  
Vinayak C. Gavali

Additive Manufacturing or three-dimensional printing refers to a process of building lighter, stronger three-dimensional parts, manufactured layer by layer. Additive manufacturing uses a computer and CAD software which passes the program to the printer to build the desired shape. Metals, thermoplastic polymers, and ceramics are the preferred materials used for additive manufacturing. Fused deposition modeling is one additive manufacturing technique involving the use of thermoplastic polymer for creating desired shape. Carbon fibers can be added into polymer to strengthen the composite without adding additional weight. Present work deals with the manufacturing of Carbon fiber-reinforced Polylactic Acid composites prepared using fused deposition modeling. Mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties of composites are studied as per ASTM standards and using sophisticated instruments. It is observed that there is enhancement in thermo-mechanical properties of composites due to addition reinforcement which is discussed in detail.


Author(s):  
Timoumi Mohamed ◽  
Najoua Barhoumi ◽  
Khalid Lamnawar ◽  
Abderrahim Maazouz ◽  
Amna Znaidi

The interesting mechanical properties of polyether ether ketone give the material a place among the foremost competitors when it comes to replacing metal. Fused deposition modeling has been recognized as an alternative method to process polyether ether ketone parts. In this study, the effect of different process parameters such as nozzle, bed, and radiant temperatures as well as printing speed and layer thickness on the tensile properties of three-dimensional printed polyether ether ketone was investigated. The optimization of the tensile properties of PEEK were studied by performing a reduced number of experiments, using the experimental design method based on the Taguchi approach which limits the number of experiments to 8 instead of 32. Results showed that a decent Young’s modulus was found by setting the nozzle temperature, print speed, and bed temperatures to their high levels and by setting the layer thickness and radiant temperature to their low level. Using these parameters, a Young’s modulus of 3.5 GPa was obtained, which represents 87.5% of the value indicated in the technical sheet. With these settings, we also found a tensile strength of 45.5 MPa, which corresponds to 46.4% of the value given by the studied polyether ether ketone material. A scanning electron microscopic investigation of the porosity and interlayer adhesion, confirmed that a higher bed temperature also tended to promote adhesion between layers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 863 ◽  
pp. 103-108
Author(s):  
Tran Anh Son ◽  
Pham Son Minh ◽  
Trung Do Thanh

3D printing is a promising digital manufacturing technique that manufactures product parts in a layer fashion. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is a widely used 3D printing technique that produces components by heating, extruding, and depositing the filaments of thermoplastic polymers. Meanwhile, the properties of FDM-produced parts are significantly influenced by process parameters. These process parameters have different advantages that need to be investigated. This paper examines the effect of some process parameters on the tensile properties of some components produced using FDM technique. The study is performed on polylactic acid (PLA) material, using full factorial experimental design. Furthermore, three process parameter—material, infill density, and infill pattern—are considered. The results indicate that only the infill pattern significantly influences the tensile properties of the model.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-38
Author(s):  
Sabit Hasçelik ◽  
◽  
Ömer T. Öztürk ◽  
Sezer Özerinç ◽  
◽  
...  

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is a widely used additive manufacturing technique for producing polymeric parts. While most commonly used FDM filaments are PLA and ABS, nylon is a widely used thermoplastic polymer in industry. This study investigated the mechanical properties of FDM-produced specimens made of nylon and quantified the effect of process parameters such as raster orientation and nozzle temperature on the mechanical properties. As the nozzle temperature increases, specimens become stronger with higher elongations at the break. This is mainly due to the improved fusion between the layers, provided by an expansion of the heat-affected zone. On the other hand, specimens with diagonal raster orientation exhibit higher elongations than those with perpendicular and parallel raster. The findings also emphasize the synergistic effects between nozzle temperature and printing orientation, showing that optimization should consider the two parameters together. Overall, FDM can produce strong nylon parts with adequate ductility suitable for load-bearing applications. However, achieving such results requires a detailed optimization of process parameters.


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