Infill pattern and density effects on the tensile properties of 3D printed PLA material

Abstract

Additive manufacturing such as 3D printing is considered as a highly convenient manufacturing process since it enables to create any 3D objects. It is known that different materials, printing techniques, and printing parameters are affecting the mechanical properties of the printed objects. However, studies on the mechanical properties of the 3D printed structure are still limited. In this work, investigation of the relationship between two printing parameters, i.e. infill pattern and infill density were conducted on the Polylactic Acid (PLA) material. Three infill densities, 25%, 50%, and 75%, and three infill patterns, grid, tri-hexagon, and concentric, were chosen. The tensile test, ASTM D638, was employed to obtain the material properties based on these two printing parameters. An open-source 3D printing slicer software, Cura, was used to manufacture the tensile specimens. The Young’s modulus, yield strength, and ultimate strength were recorded and examined. The results showed that the tensile properties increase as infill density increases. Of the three-printing pattern, the concentric has the highest values of tensile properties regardless of the infill densities. This finding can be used as a reference for creating a finite element model (FEM) as well as predicting the optimum tensile properties with respect to the printing parameters.