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Static and dynamic flexural behaviour of printed polylactic acid with thermal annealing: parametric optimisation and empirical modelling

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Abstract

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a widely used extrusion-based additive manufacturing process due to its low operating cost and available material options. Polylactic acid (PLA) is a bio-based compostable polymer extensively used as a feedstock material in FFF. The application of PLA in engineering and medical applications is limited due to the low thermal stability associated with the polymer. The present work aims to study the effect of thermal annealing on FFF-printed PLA in static and dynamic flexural loading. Response surface methodology (RSM) is chosen as a design of experiment method to study the effect of annealing time and temperature on flexural properties of printed PLA. Annealing is found to be advantageous in increasing the dynamic flexural properties. Improved glass transition temperature, stiffness, thermal stability, and crystallinity are also evident with annealing. However, annealing is found to be detrimental in improving static flexural properties. Considering the desirability function (DF) approach, annealing time and temperature are optimised for measured static and dynamic flexural properties. Samples are further investigated in scanning electron microscope for failure mode and differential scanning calorimetry for crystalline behaviour of annealed PLA. Empirical models are proposed for predicting the flexural behaviour of printed PLA. The current study has shown that the FFF-printed PLA can be tailored to specific application requirements due to its stable characteristics for thermal loading with thermal annealing.

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Data availability

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article. Any experimental data require in further can be provided by corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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The consent to participate has been received explicitly from all co-authors.

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The consent to submit this paper has been received clearly from all co-authors.

Abbreviations

NA PLA:

Non-annealed PLA

A PLA:

Annealed PLA

XX–YY A:

Annealing time–temperature

FS :

Flexural strength

E :

Flexural modulus

ε :

Failure strain

E' :

Storage modulus

E” :

Loss modulus

Tan (δ) :

Damping factor

T g :

Glass transition temperature

t :

Annealing time

T :

Annealing temperature

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

    Niranjan Chikkanna & Shankar Krishnapillai

  2. Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, India

    Velmurugan Ramachandran

Authors
  1. Niranjan Chikkanna
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  2. Shankar Krishnapillai
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  3. Velmurugan Ramachandran
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Contributions

Niranjan Y C has been responsible planning the experiments, conducting the experiments, and analysing all the obtained data. Shankar Krishnapillai and Velmurugan R were responsible for determining the suitable structure and contents of this paper. Their expertise was also necessary in the planning and conducting the experiments.

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Correspondence to Velmurugan Ramachandran.

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Chikkanna, N., Krishnapillai, S. & Ramachandran, V. Static and dynamic flexural behaviour of printed polylactic acid with thermal annealing: parametric optimisation and empirical modelling. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 119, 1179–1197 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-021-08127-7

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