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The effects of printing parameters on quality, strength, mass, and processing time of polylactic acid specimens produced by additive manufacturing

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Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a technology adopted in numerous industries for rapid prototyping and fabrication. One of the AM technologies is Material Extrusion (ME), according to ISO/ASTM 52,900 standard. Polylactic acid (PLA) is a thermoplastic employed in most of the low-cost 3D printers. Owing to its widespread use, it is fundamental to understand the relationship that exists among the quality of parts made of PLA produced by ME, their mechanical properties as well as their mass and processing time, considering novel infill patterns proposed by various slicer software. This paper proposed an experimental study to optimize these variables by modifying three key parameters (infill pattern, build orientation, and infill percentage) in 3D printing of PLA. The effects of these parameters are analyzed using the Taguchi Methodology and an analysis of variance (ANOVA). A desirability analysis was employed to obtain a set of parameters that allowed the best trade-off among all the variables.

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Data availability

The raw/processed data required to reproduce these findings cannot be shared at this time as data also form part of an ongoing study. The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are not publicly available as data also form part of an ongoing study but are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Puebla for providing the 3D printer and material for conducting the experimental trials. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Science, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Eduardo Monroy Cárdenas 2000, 50110, Toluca, Estado de México, Mexico

    Carmita Camposeco-Negrete

  2. School of Engineering and Science, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Atlixcáyotl 5718, Reserva Territorial Atlixcáyotl, 72453, Puebla, Puebla, Mexico

    Julio Varela-Soriano & José Jorge Rojas-Carreón

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  1. Carmita Camposeco-Negrete
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  2. Julio Varela-Soriano
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  3. José Jorge Rojas-Carreón
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Contributions

Carmita Camposeco-Negrete: study conception and design, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting of manuscript, and critical revision. Julio Varela-Soriano: data acquisition, critical revision of manuscript. José Jorge Rojas-Carreón: data acquisition, critical revision of manuscript.

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Correspondence to Carmita Camposeco-Negrete.

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Camposeco-Negrete, C., Varela-Soriano, J. & Rojas-Carreón, J.J. The effects of printing parameters on quality, strength, mass, and processing time of polylactic acid specimens produced by additive manufacturing. Prog Addit Manuf 6, 821–840 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-021-00198-y

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