Poly-lactic Acid (PLA) is an environmentally friendly material with better stability in heat shrinkage than Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS), such as warping in 3D printing. This study focused on the enhancement of the mechanical properties of PLA filament for 3D printers through different heat treatment temperature and heat exposure time of PLA samples. The results showed that the highest flexural strength was recorded in the PLA sample that went through heat treatment at [Formula: see text] and heat exposure time of 300 s. And it tended to decrease with temperature and time after this point. But it has higher flexural strength than neat PLA. The compressive strength showed the highest compressive strength through heat treatment at [Formula: see text] for 600 s. Because compressive strength has no threshold limit temperature in experimental temperature, compressive strength showed a tendency to increase with increasing heat exposure time and high temperature at same condition. This result showed that the heat treatment process affects the flexural strength and compressive strength and can be improved upon using appropriate heat treatment conditions.

3D printing technology has emerged as a high value-added industry with high efficiency that has dramatically broken away from the existing material and manufacturing industry’s human-based production system. These technologies, ranging from small parts to large structures, are rapidly developing due to the challenge of various filament materials, whereas there are significant concerns about waste filler materials, and complimentary research is needed to improve them. Polylactic acid (PLA), the representative polymer of 3D printing, contributes to minimizing environmental risks. However, although thermoplastic PLA has excellent reversible properties for heat in terms of sustainable resources, it is degraded as a low value-added material afterward. Therefore, in this study, the effect of repetitive recycling on the mechanical and thermal properties of PLA filaments was analyzed to verify and re-evaluate PLA as a renewable resource. As a result, recycled PLA has decreased tensile and flexural strength by up to 69% and 53%, respectively, compared to initial neat PLA with the increase of the number of repetitive recycling, and this demonstrates the change in the thermal properties of recycled PLA.

Abstract Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites have been used extensively in the aerospace and automotive industries due to their high strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. Compared with conventional manufacturing processes for CFRP, additive manufacturing (AM) can facilitate the fabrication of CFRP components with complex structures. While AM offers significant advantages over conventional processes, establishing the structure–property relationships in additively manufactured CFRP remains a challenge because the mechanical properties of additively manufactured CFRP depend on many design parameters. To address this issue, we introduce a data-driven modeling approach that predicts the flexural strength of continuous carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CCFRP) fabricated by fused deposition modeling (FDM). The predictive model of flexural strength is trained using machine learning and validated on experimental data. The relationship between three structural design factors, including the number of fiber layers, the number of fiber rings as well as polymer infill patterns, and the flexural strength of the CCFRP specimens is quantified.

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Vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VaRTM) is becoming one of the most robust alternatives for autoclave processes. VaRTM, which applies the resin injection method in a vacuum environment, generally uses fiber reinforcement and a polymer matrix separately in the process. The VaRTM is mainly dominated by the characteristics of constituent materials, such as preform permeability and resin viscosity. Among them, process design with the arrangement of resin inlet/outlet locations is closely related to process defects, and inappropriate inlet/outlet layouts cause voids, etc, which has a decisive effect on quality degradation. Therefore, in this study, a highly curved and twisted spar structure was fabricated by the VaRTM, and both flow simulations using Programs for Applied Mechanics–Resin Transfer Molding software and experimental test parts built with three different inlet/outlet line conditions were performed and compared to predict and improve impregnation quality. There was good agreement between the simulation and built test specimen for the three cases that the shorter inlet and outlet length resulted in improved impregnation quality. It was verified that impregnation and inner quality could be improved through flow simulation analysis during the VaRTM process.