COMPARISON STUDY ON MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF 3D PRINTED PLA AND PLA/ALUMINIUM COMPOSITES USING FUSED DEPOSITION MODELING METHOD

• Published in: Malaysian Journal of Microscopy
• Main Author: Sukindar N.A.; Shaharuddin S.I.S.; Kamruddin S.; Azhar A.Z.A.; Choong Y.C.; Samsudin N.M.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Microscopy Society of Malaysia 2022
• Online Access: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85129554700&partnerID=40&md5=ea11ad38776061d04cc48fcb41684093

3D printing technology has been developed to produce prototype and end used parts. The demand is increasing recently making this technology a popular choice for the industry especially using fused deposition modeling (FDM) method. A common material used for this FDM technology is polylactic acid (PLA) as it is sustainable, low cost, and compatible with the system. However new PLA-based composites need to be developed with improved mechanical properties for specific applications. The need to study the mechanical properties and effect of printing parameters on the printed parts of different materials is essential to achieve the desired output. This study intends to apply Taguchi's design of experiment (DOE) method to compare the effect of printing parameters such as layer thickness, number of shell and printing speed on the tensile strength of PLA and PLA/Aluminium composite. The result shows that PLA exhibits better tensile performance compared to PLA/Aluminium composite. The ANOVA analysis also shows that increasing number of shells contribute to greater tensile strength for both materials. © Malaysian Journal of Microscopy (2022). All rights reserved.