Investigations for mechanical properties of PLA-HAp-CS based functional prototypes

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports the investigations on blend of biocompatible and biodegradable polymer, poly lactic acid (PLA) reinforced with another biocompatible and bioactive polymer chitosan (CS) and ceramic material; hydroxyapatite (HAp) from material processing view point. The blend has been selected based upon melt flow index (MFI), flowability, thermal stability and mechanical testing. After ascertaining proportion/composition of PLA-HAp-CS on twin-screw extruder (TSE) feedstock filaments for fused deposition modelling (FDM) have been prepared. The fabricated feedstock filaments were used on FDM for printing of biomedical scaffolds (with input parameters as: layer thickness, deposition angle and infill density). The tensile and flexural tests of functional prototypes were performed on the universal tensile tester (UTT). Finally combined optimization was performed on tensile and flexural samples to determine the best setting of open-source FDM for printing of biomedical scaffolds.