Flexural properties of metal 3D printing products using PLA-stainless steel filament

Abstract

3D printing is a technology that can print an object from a digital file namely computer-Aided drawing (CAD), into a real physically object having volume and mass. Currently, some metal-plastic mixed filaments available in the market place as the fed for the FDM 3D printing, one of which is composed of steel and PLA, called as eSteel. Therefore, it needs to research the mechanical properties of their printed products. This research aims to explore the flexural strength printed products using eSteel. Experiments were design based on Taguchi orthogonal array L4 (23). Three control parameters its levels are: extruder temperature (220°C, 225°C), layer height (0.3â mm, 0.4 mm), and raster angle (0°/90°, 45°/45°) are. The specimens are in form of the bending test ASTM D790. Each combination replicated five times using 3D printing machine HE3D K200. S/N ratio analysis and Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed that the raster angle had the most important influence on the flexural strength of the product with a contribution of 43.22%, followed by layer height and extruder temperature with a contribution of 24.08% and 12.6%, respectively. S/N ratio analysis proofed that the combination of control parameters to the maximum flexural strength of 39.54â MPa when combining parameters of extruder temperature 220°C, layer height 0.4â mm, and raster angle 0°/90°.