Predicting mechanical properties of 3D printed nanocomposites using multi-scale modeling

Abstract

The main objective of this research is to predict the Young’s modulus of 3D-printed specimens made of nanocomposites. Printable nanocomposites filaments reinforced with various portions of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are produced at the first stage. At the second stage, extruded nanocomposite filaments are fed into a 3D desktop printer and tensile specimens are printed with two different infill patterns. A multi-scale modeling is developed as a hierarchical computational procedure covering involved scales of micro, meso and macro. Treating CNT length, orientation and agglomeration as random parameters, stochastic modeling is performed. CNT length is considered at microscale, while CNT agglomeration and orientation are taken into account at the scale of meso. The infill patterns and printing parameters are captured at the uppermost scale of macro. The Young’s modulus of both nanocomposite filaments and 3D printed samples are predicted and compared with the results of experimental characterization.