Tensile properties of sandwich-designed carbon fiber filled PLA prepared via multi-material additive layered manufacturing and post-annealing treatment
Abstract
Polylactic Acid (PLA) experiences widely spread applications in Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) owing to its relatively high stiffness, strength, and environmentally friendly biodegradability. Reinforcing inclusions like short carbon fibers are introduced to virgin PLA feedstock aiming to improve the mechanical performance of FFF-made products. Nevertheless, the rigid fibers significantly reduce the ductility of the overall fabricated parts. This study prepares sandwich specimens with PLA as core and its 10 wt% chopped carbon fiber reinforced composites (i.e., CF/PLA) as shell via a low-cost FFF-based multi-material additive layered manufacturing method. The sandwich specimen has three layers, which are changed according to different material volumes, which is able to design the local strength and toughness performances of a printed part. Tensile properties of these sandwich samples printed in the different volumetric rates of virgin PLA constituents are measured. It is found that the strength of sandwich specimens with 20% vol of PLA reduces noticeably as compared to the full CF/PLA specimens. The 80% vol specimens exhibit a competitive strength as compared to the 40% and 60% vol specimens, while its toughness increases notably as compared to the other cases. Finite element simulations of the layered manufacturing process show that the thermal residual stresses of 20% vol sandwich accumulates most significantly. We also explore the effects of thermal annealing on the prepared sandwiches. Experimental results indicated that the post-annealing process improved the strength and stiffness of the sandwich specimens, while enhancing the stability of the mechanical properties of the FFF printed sandwich.
Funding source: National Natural Science Foundation of China
Award Identifier / Grant number: Unassigned
Acknowledgments
This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52101381), the National Research Center for International Subsea and Engineering Technology and Equipment (3132022346). The authors acknowledge Mr. Hongliang Wei, and Mr. Chonglei Mou from Dalian Zhongyi Industrial Technology Corp. (Dalian, China), for the beneficial discussions on printing parameters calibration and optimization. We also appreciate the material properties information of Kexcelled PLA K6 provided by the material supplier (North Bridge new material Corp., Suzhou, China).
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Author contributions: All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved submission.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
In order to provide the reader with a convenient understanding of the specific mechanical properties of the specimens, we plotted in Figure 10 stress-strain curves for one specimen from each group of specimens based on the raw data from the tensile tests as follows.

Stress–Strain of 0% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.

Stress–Strain of 20% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.

Stress–Strain of 40% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.

Stress–Strain of 60% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.

Stress–Strain of 80% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.

Stress–Strain of 100% VOL. PLA-CF/PLA samples.
A finite element model is built to simulate this bi-material layer-by-layer FFF process, as done in (Wang et al. 2021). The governing equations of the thermal conservation can be written as,
where
The governing equations for the mechanical analysis can be written as,
where
where
In the material deposition process, the thermal boundary condition for the modelled domain at the bottom nodes (
where
where
The mechanical boundary condition of the domain is that the bottom nodes are fixed in all six degrees of freedom:
where
In addition, the initial conditions of the material deposition are simply that the temperature of the nodes of the newly activated element is the nozzle extrusion temperature and the temperatures of other nodes are computed based on previous time steps. The initial displacements of nodes of the newly activated element are zero and those of other nodes are computed based on previous time steps.
This section provides alternative computational results for a VOL. 40% sandwich specimen, simulating the manufacturing process of a multi-nozzle FFF system (cf. Figures C1 and C2). With such a system, there is an additional time cost for material transition. Herein, a 2-min transition time is applied (which is a common practical value). As shown in Figure C2, it is apparently seen that the interlayer between the two material constituents accumulates a higher magnitude of stresses, the maximum stress in the final printed status increasing 64% (i.e., comparing the maximum stress values appearing in Figures 14d and C2d). This is considered partially as a result of the discontinuous temperature distribution shown in Figure C1. It is clearly seen that the temperature of the printed part decreases dramatically after nozzle-transitions, as seen in Figure C1b–d.

Computed temperature contours for multi-nozzle-FFF-printed VOL. 40% sandwich block: (a) t = 1.76 s; (b) t = 12.42 s; (c) t = 17.44 s; (d) t = 24.00 s.

Computed Mises stress contours for multi-nozzle-FFF-printed VOL. 40% sandwich block: (a) t = 1.76 s; (b) t = 12.42 s; (c) t = 17.44 s; (d) t = 24.00 s.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Experimental investigation and simulation of 3D printed sandwich structures with novel core topologies under bending loads
- Notable electrical and mechanical properties of polyacrylamide (PAM) with graphene oxide (GO) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs)
- Study on the thermal stability and combustion performance of polyurethane foams modified with manganese phytate
- Improving the rheology of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and processability of blown film extrusion using a new binary processing aid
- Stereocomplex formation of a poly(D-lactide)/poly(L-lactide) blend on a technical scale
- Experimental investigation on mechanical and tribological characteristics of snake grass/sisal fiber reinforced hybrid composites
- Tensile properties of sandwich-designed carbon fiber filled PLA prepared via multi-material additive layered manufacturing and post-annealing treatment
- Non-isothermal simulation of a corner vortex within entry flow for a viscoelastic fluid
- Feasibility assessment of injection molding online monitoring based on oil pressure/nozzle pressure/cavity pressure
- Modelling of roller conveyor for the simulation of rubber tire tread extrusion
- Reactive compatibilization of polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride and styrene, prepared by a mechanochemical method, for a blend system of biodegradable poly(propylene carbonate)/polypropylene spunbond nonwoven slice
- Effect of stacking sequence and thickness variation on the thermo-mechanical properties of flax-kenaf laminated biocomposites and prediction of the optimal configuration using a decision-making framework
- Design and manufacture of an additive manufacturing printer based on 3D melt electrospinning writing of polymer
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Experimental investigation and simulation of 3D printed sandwich structures with novel core topologies under bending loads
- Notable electrical and mechanical properties of polyacrylamide (PAM) with graphene oxide (GO) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs)
- Study on the thermal stability and combustion performance of polyurethane foams modified with manganese phytate
- Improving the rheology of linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) and processability of blown film extrusion using a new binary processing aid
- Stereocomplex formation of a poly(D-lactide)/poly(L-lactide) blend on a technical scale
- Experimental investigation on mechanical and tribological characteristics of snake grass/sisal fiber reinforced hybrid composites
- Tensile properties of sandwich-designed carbon fiber filled PLA prepared via multi-material additive layered manufacturing and post-annealing treatment
- Non-isothermal simulation of a corner vortex within entry flow for a viscoelastic fluid
- Feasibility assessment of injection molding online monitoring based on oil pressure/nozzle pressure/cavity pressure
- Modelling of roller conveyor for the simulation of rubber tire tread extrusion
- Reactive compatibilization of polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride and styrene, prepared by a mechanochemical method, for a blend system of biodegradable poly(propylene carbonate)/polypropylene spunbond nonwoven slice
- Effect of stacking sequence and thickness variation on the thermo-mechanical properties of flax-kenaf laminated biocomposites and prediction of the optimal configuration using a decision-making framework
- Design and manufacture of an additive manufacturing printer based on 3D melt electrospinning writing of polymer