Tribological behavior of surface textured short carbon fiber reinforced nylon composites fabricated by 3D printing techniques
Abstract In this paper, short carbon fiber reinforced nylon composites were fabricated using the fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology. In particular, different surface textures, namely convex squares and triangles, were created by using the printing method. It was found that the fiber reinforcements could effectively enhance the load-carry capacity of the printed polymeric materials. Moreover, the tribological performance of the composites can be further improved with the induced surface textures. Microscopic observations revealed that the surface textures are particularly beneficial for the wear reduction by collecting hard wear debris such as broken fibers and thus diminishing the three-body abrasive wear. The work has demonstrated that 3D printing technology has the great potential for developing new wear-resistant engineering materials by controlling and creating the desirable compositions and geometric structures/textures simultaneously.