Abstract
Few commodity semi-crystalline thermoplastics in neat form are used in fused deposition modeling (FDM) because they experience dimensional instability (warping) during printing. In this study, a commercially available polypropylene (PP) filament for FDM processing was used to print tensile and flexural test samples. Three printing parameters were investigated: (1) extrusion temperature (200, 250 °C), (2) printing speed (45, 90 mm/s) and (3) layer height (0.1, 0.3 mm). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) showed that FDM printed PP samples had fewer α-crystals and more β-crystals than injection-molded (IM) PP samples. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) indicated that a higher extrusion temperature, slower printing speed and smaller layer height facilitated the molecular diffusion at the interfaces and created a smaller neck size within the printed parts. Density measurements showed that IM PP samples were denser than the FDM PP samples. No differences in density were found among the FDM PP samples. Compared to the IM PP, the mechanical properties decreased less for the PP printed at higher extrusion temperature (< 11.5%). The FDM PP parts had similar or even increased flexural modulus compared to the IM PP.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported in part by the Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station (MAFES) project ME0-M-8-00527-13 and the USDA ARS Forest Products Research Agreement 58-0202-4-003. The authors thank Joshua Kovach for preparing the CAD drawings of the testing samples.
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Wang, L., Sanders, J.E., Gardner, D.J. et al. Effect of fused deposition modeling process parameters on the mechanical properties of a filled polypropylene. Prog Addit Manuf 3, 205–214 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-018-0053-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-018-0053-3