Investigation of tensile properties of sprayed aluminium based PLA composites fabricated by FDM technology

Abstract

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) has gained widespread popularity among researchers working in area of material science, medical implants and new product development. FDM is used by many industries for prototyping and end-use components due to lower cost and its versatility of material usage. Researchers have used variety of reinforcements for enhancement of mechanical properties of feedstock filament used for FDM. A novel technique has been developed to manufacture FDM composites using alternate layers of sprayed aluminium and Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) filament utilizing open source FDM printer. This study investigates the tensile properties of metal sprayed thermoplastic components and their possible interaction with other process parameters i.e. infill density and bed temperature of FDM printer using Taguchi and ANOVA techniques. Higher tensile strength of composites has been experienced as compared to both virgin PLA components and aluminium spray coated FDM parts. The study demonstrates that the tensile properties are significantly impacted by infill density and number of stacked layers of metal spray; peak strength is directly proportional to infill density while inversely proportional to number of layers.