Evaluation of the deterioration of the mechanical properties of poly(Lactic acid) structures fabricated by a fused filament fabrication 3d printer

Abstract

A fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printer is a simple device capable of manufacturing three-dimensional structures in a series of easy steps. Commercial-level FFF 3D printers have spread rapidly in many fields in recent years. Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) is a biodegradable thermoplastic polymer used as a typical printing medium for FFF 3D printers. The FFF printer constructs an object with melted polymer extruded from a tiny scanning nozzle. The mechanical properties of FFF 3D structures printed with different scan patterns can therefore vary in accordance with the directions from which forces act upon them. The nozzle scan pattern also influences the deterioration of the mechanical properties of the structures in accordance with the degradation caused by the hydrolysis of PLA. In this study we conducted tensile tests to evaluate the strength characteristics of 3D printed test pieces formed from PLA using four different scan patterns: parallel, vertical, parallel-and-vertical, and cross-hatched at opposing diagonal angles to the tensile direction. We also formed test pieces by an injection molding method using the same material, for further comparison. We evaluated the deterioration of the test pieces after immersing them in saline for certain periods. After the test pieces formed by different nozzle scan patterns were immersed, they exhibited differences in the rates by which their maximum tensile stresses deteriorated and their masses increased through water uptake. The influences of the scan patterns could be classified into two types: the unidirectional scan pattern influence and bidirectional scan pattern influence. The data obtained in this research will be applied to structural design when the FFF 3D printer is employed for the fabrication of structures with PLA filament.