An Experimental Analysis of Mechanical Tensile Properties on Polylactic Acid and Polylactic Acid with Carbon Fiber in a FDM Fabricated Part by 3D Printer

Rapid prototyping (RP) is one of the most popular additive manufacturing methods. It is invariably used in connotation with 3-D printing which permits fast fabrication (printing) of complex parts by layerwise addition of material. Some major advantages that RP technology offers include reduction in printing time and cost, less human intervention and consequently shorter product development cycles. Among the different commercially viable RP techniques, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the most commonly used RP techniques. The FDM method forms three-dimensional objects directly from computer generated solid or surface models with the help of filamentous materials which are conveyed precisely in a heated nozzle. The potential for parts of parts that can be created using FDM is enormously high. Major reason for this is the large number of customized input variables that a user can define before the start of printing process. Layer thickness and raster angle can be considered as one of the important process parameters during formation of components by FDM. PLA and PLA composite (PLA+CARBON FIBER) have been considered. For these materials, a comprehensive experimentation has been done to analyze the effect of two process parameters, namely layer thickness and raster angle on three response variables, test specimens for, tensile strength Further, the relative effects of layer thickness and raster angle have been determined using ANOVA on the aforesaid mechanical properties and conclusions have been made. The findings of this work can prove beneficial to practitioners and researchers working in the RP based technology and various related areas which include space satellites, marine engineering components, household appliances etc.