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Experimental and numerical investigation of extrudate swell of polylactic acid via extrusion-based additive manufacturing process

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Abstract

Extrudate swell is a rheological phenomenon of polymers that occurs after the extrusion die exit due to relaxation of the residual molecular stress. This phenomenon is essential to ensure the accuracy and stability of components manufactured by Extrusion-based additive manufacturing (EAM) process. Extrudate swell can be affected by multiple factors including material properties and processing parameters that can be coupled and it is difficult to fully understand their effects, especially in absence of accurate online measurement devices. In this study, the extrudate swell was investigated experimentally as a function of the extrusion rate, melt temperature and nozzle diameter for polylactic acid (PLA) material. The Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and level set method (LS) in COMSOL Multiphysics were used to simulate the polymer flow out of the extrusion nozzle. The simulation results matched well with experimental results and showed that the swell rate decreases with increasing temperature and nozzle diameter and decreasing extrusion rate. These results can be used to optimize the parameters of EAM processes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledged the financial support received from the China Scholarship Council (CSC). Experimental tests were carried out thanks to SupMicroTech-ENSMM workshop and local plateforms (AMETISTE for metrology and tribology, MIFHYSTO for cutting forces). This work was carried out within the Manufacturing 21 network, which gathers about 20 French research laboratories. The covered topics are the study and modeling of the manufacturing processes, especially the numerical simulation and investigation of extrudate swell of PLA via extrusion-based Additive Manufacturing process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Univ. of Technology of Troyes, 12 Rue Marie Curie, GAMMA310004, Troyes, France

    Hong Wang & Abel Cherouat

  2. Université de Franche-Comté, SUPMICROTECH, CNRS, Institut FEMTO-ST, 25000, Besançon, France

    Hong Wang, Faleh Rabhi & Thierry Barriere

  3. SUPMICROTECH, CNRS, Institut FEMTO-ST, 25000, Besançon, France

    Alexandre Gilbin

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  1. Hong Wang
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Contributions

H. Wang: design, methodology, data analysis, visualization, writing—original draft.

F. Rabhi: data analysis, writing—editing.

A. Cherouat: supervision, review—editing.

A. Gilbin: methodology.

T. Barriere: supervision, review—editing.

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Correspondence to Faleh Rabhi.

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The authors have no competing interests to declare that are relevant to the content of this article. This work was realized on a 3D printing equipment at the Department of Applied Mechanics of Besançon, the presented results are free of commercial rights.

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Wang, H., Rabhi, F., Cherouat, A. et al. Experimental and numerical investigation of extrudate swell of polylactic acid via extrusion-based additive manufacturing process. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 131, 663–674 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11493-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-023-11493-z

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