Effect of Printing Parameters on Tensile Strength of 3D Printed PLA + Carbon Fiber Samples—A Taguchi Approach

Abstract

AbstractThe influencing parameters like infill density, infill pattern, nozzle temperature and layer height on tensile strength of carbon fiber-reinforced Polylactic Acid (PLA) samples were investigated. PLA along with carbon fiber composite filament is used as a printing material owing to its excellent structural properties. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technique is employed in the present investigation due to its simplicity. Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is one of the simplest and most cost-effective printing techniques in the Additive manufacturing process. The different printing parameters are used to develop the tensile samples as per Taguchi’s design of experiments. A L16 orthogonal array was selected from the set of levels and factors in the present investigation. The tensile specimens were printed as per the ASTM D638 testing standard. It has been observed from the results that the most influencing parameter on tensile strength is infill density, and infill pattern layer thickness is having very less influence on tensile strength followed by nozzle temperature. The maximum tensile strength of 61.83 MPa is obtained at a line pattern with 90% of infill density with a layer thickness of 0.05 mm printed with a nozzle temperature of 210 °C.KeywordsAdditive manufacturingFDMPLATensile strengthTaguchi methodANOVA