Multi-material additive manufacturing: effect of process parameters on flexural behavior of soft-hard sandwich beams

Purpose Understanding the effect of process parameters on interfaces and interfacial bonding between two materials during multi-material additive manufacturing (MMAM) is crucial to the fabrication of high-quality and strong multi-material structures. The purpose of this paper is to conduct an experimental and statistical study to investigate the effect of process parameters of soft and hard materials on the flexural behavior of multi-material structures fabricated via material extrusion-based MMAM. Design/methodology/approach Sandwich beam samples composed of a soft core and hard shells are fabricated via MMAM under different printing conditions. A design of experiments is conducted to investigate the effect of the print speed and nozzle temperature on the flexural behavior of soft-hard sandwich beams. Analysis of variance and logistic regression analysis are used to analyze the significance of each process parameter. The interfacial morphology of the samples after the flexural tests is characterized. Thermal distributions during the MMAM process are captured to understand the effect of process parameters on the flexural behavior based on inter-bonding formation mechanisms. Findings Experimental results show that the soft-hard sandwich beams exhibited two different failure modes, including shell failure and interfacial failure. A transition of failure modes from interfacial failure to shell failure is observed as the nozzle temperatures increase. The samples that fail because of interfacial cracking exhibit a pure adhesive failure because of weak interfacial fracture properties. The samples that fail because of shell cracking exhibit a mixed adhesive and cohesive failure. The flexural strength and modulus are affected by the nozzle temperature for the hard material and the print speeds for both hard and soft materials significantly. Originality/value This paper first investigates the effect of process parameters for soft and hard materials on the flexural behavior of additively manufactured multi-material structures. Especially, the ranges of the selected process parameters are distinct, and the effect of all possible combinations of the process parameters on the flexural behavior is characterized through a full factorial design of experiments. The experimental results and conclusions of this paper provide guidance for future research on improving the interfacial bonding and understanding the failure mechanism of multi-material structures fabricated by MMAM.

[1]  M. Gupta,et al.  Advances in Polymers Based Multi-Material Additive-Manufacturing Techniques: State-of-Art Review on Properties and Applications , 2021, Additive Manufacturing.

[2]  I. Fidan,et al.  Review on Additive Manufacturing of Multi-Material Parts: Progress and Challenges , 2021, Journal of Manufacturing and Materials Processing.

[3]  Pratiksha Awasthi,et al.  Fused deposition modeling of thermoplastic elastomeric materials: Challenges and opportunities , 2021 .

[4]  Yayue Pan,et al.  Multi-material distribution planning for additive manufacturing of biomimetic structures , 2021, Rapid Prototyping Journal.

[5]  A. Bastawros,et al.  Correlating interfacial fracture toughness to surface roughness in polymer-based interfaces , 2021, Journal of Materials Research.

[6]  Sezer Özerinç,et al.  Mechanical properties of thermoplastic parts produced by fused deposition modeling:a review , 2021, Rapid Prototyping Journal.

[7]  Parinya Punpongsanon,et al.  Programmable Filament: Printed Filaments for Multi-material 3D Printing , 2020, UIST.

[8]  Xiao Kuang,et al.  Fused filament fabrication of polymer materials: A review of interlayer bond , 2020 .

[9]  Rupinder Singh,et al.  Multi material 3D printing of PLA-PA6/TiO2 polymeric matrix: Flexural, wear and morphological properties , 2020, Journal of Thermoplastic Composite Materials.

[10]  Howon Lee,et al.  Recent advances in multi-material additive manufacturing: methods and applications , 2020 .

[11]  Daniel Therriault,et al.  Multi‐Material 3D and 4D Printing: A Survey , 2020, Advanced science.

[12]  Jung‐Wuk Hong,et al.  Impact resistance of nacre-like composites diversely patterned by 3D printing , 2020 .

[13]  Rafiq Ahmad,et al.  The impact on the mechanical properties of multi-material polymers fabricated with a single mixing nozzle and multi-nozzle systems via fused deposition modeling , 2020 .

[14]  Yuan Siang Lui,et al.  4D printing and stimuli-responsive materials in biomedical aspects. , 2019, Acta biomaterialia.

[15]  M. Bordegoni,et al.  The influence of slicing parameters on the multi-material adhesion mechanisms of FDM printed parts: an exploratory study , 2019, Virtual and Physical Prototyping.

[16]  O. Carneiro,et al.  Interface geometries in 3D multi-material prints by fused filament fabrication , 2019, Rapid Prototyping Journal.

[17]  A. Bastawros,et al.  Mode-I fracture toughness and surface morphology evolution for contaminated adhesively bonded composite structures , 2018, Composite Structures.

[18]  O. S. Carneiro,et al.  Multi-material 3D printing: The relevance of materials affinity on the boundary interface performance , 2018, Additive Manufacturing.

[19]  Piotr Wolszczak,et al.  Enhancement of Mechanical Properties of FDM-PLA Parts via Thermal Annealing , 2018, Macromolecular Materials and Engineering.

[20]  A. Bandyopadhyay,et al.  Additive manufacturing of multi-material structures , 2018, Materials Science and Engineering: R: Reports.

[21]  Jianzhong Fu,et al.  Interfacial bonding during multi-material fused deposition modeling (FDM) process due to inter-molecular diffusion , 2018, Materials & Design.

[22]  A. Kashani,et al.  Additive manufacturing (3D printing): A review of materials, methods, applications and challenges , 2018, Composites Part B: Engineering.

[23]  Jesse K. Placone,et al.  Recent Advances in Extrusion‐Based 3D Printing for Biomedical Applications , 2018, Advanced healthcare materials.

[24]  P. Hoskins,et al.  On the optimization of low-cost FDM 3D printers for accurate replication of patient-specific abdominal aortic aneurysm geometry , 2018, 3D Printing in Medicine.

[25]  K. Migler,et al.  Weld formation during material extrusion additive manufacturing. , 2017, Soft matter.

[26]  A. Bastawros,et al.  Prediction of Interfacial Surface Energy and Effective Fracture Energy From Contaminant Concentration in Polymer-Based Interfaces , 2017 .

[27]  K. Shea,et al.  Integrated Design and Simulation of Tunable, Multi-State Structures Fabricated Monolithically with Multi-Material 3D Printing , 2017, Scientific Reports.

[28]  Justin A. Blaber,et al.  Ncorr: Open-Source 2D Digital Image Correlation Matlab Software , 2015, Experimental Mechanics.

[29]  A. Abbott,et al.  Process-structure-property effects on ABS bond strength in fused filament fabrication , 2018 .