Three-dimensional printing of dual thermoplastic materials with different layer combinations: Tensile, flexural, and fractured surface investigations
The three-dimensional (3-D) printing with deposition of dual/multiple materials on alternative layers has been explored by some researchers for various engineering applications. But, hitherto, little has been reported on failure mechanism of dual/multiple materials 3-D printed parts in tensile and flexural testing. In this work, investigations were made to explore the tensile, flexural, morphological, and thermal properties of dual thermoplastic material (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA))-based 3-D printing of functional prototypes with low-cost fused deposition modeling process. The results of the study suggest that for mechanical properties of 3-D printed parts, the number of conversions, the number of negative conversions for selecting particular layer of thermoplastic material, and the number of layers (while selecting the alternative layer’s material) have significant effect. The maximum peak strength of 55.98 MPa (while tensile testing) was observed for combination of four consecutive layers of PLA and two layers of ABS, which is 15.81% higher than the ABS (48.34 MPa) and at par with the PLA-based 3-D printed functional prototype. Also, it has been ascertained that the deposition of ABS on PLA has better compatibility than PLA deposition on ABS platform. In case of flexural strength, single material-based 3-D printed parts have better properties. From fractured surface analysis, it has been observed that dual material-based 3-D printed prototypes have relatively large number of voids/porosity holes in comparison to single material-based 3-D printed prototypes, thus ultimately resulting in poor mechanical performance.