Effects of cellular crossing paths on mechanical properties of 3D printed continuous fiber reinforced biocomposite honeycomb structures

Abstract

3D printing continuous fiber reinforced composite (CFRC) has the advantages of manufacturing complex shapes and short production cycles. Due to the anisotropic mechanical properties of continuous fibers, the printing path of the fibers determines the properties of the printed CFRCs. In this paper, a series of novel cellular crossing paths were proposed to print continuous ramie fiber reinforced biocomposite honeycomb structures (CFHSs). The compression, bending, and tensile tests were performed to analyze the effects of cellular crossing paths on the mechanical properties of CFHSs. An assessment method was presented for analyzing the comprehensive mechanical properties of CFHSs printed by different printing paths. The results showed that the CFHSs printed by no-crossing path (Path-1), single-crossing path (Path-3), and double-crossing path (Path-4) exhibited better compression, bending, and tensile properties, respectively. In addition, the samples printed by Path-3 were the most outstanding in the assessments of comprehensive mechanical properties, the comprehensive performance assessment score was 1.5 times that of the single-crossing path (Path-2, minimum score). Thus, an appropriate cellular crossing path could be selected according to the structural load-bearing state, thereby providing higher mechanical properties.