Properties investigation of 3D printed continuous pineapple leaf fiber-reinforced PLA composite

Abstract

Previous researchers tried to improve the mechanical properties of 3D printed part by adding short or continuous, natural, or nonnatural fibers as the reinforcement for thermosetting or thermoplastic matrix. None of the research found in the literature incorporates continuous natural pineapple leaf fiber as the reinforcement for polylactic acid (PLA) matrix by using 3D printing. The objective of this research is to investigate the tensile strength, the elongation, and the dimensional error of the 3D printed parts made of continuous pineapple leaf fiber-reinforced PLA composite using different values of extrusion temperature and feed rate. The experiment involves 32 factorial design with two replications and, therefore, prints 18 tensile test specimens according to ASTM D638. Based on the result of the experiment, it can be concluded that the use of continuous pineapple leaf fiber as the reinforcement for the PLA matrix increases the tensile strength of the composite. The use of continuous pineapple leaf fiber does not increase the dimensional error value of the composite part beyond the maximum value of the common fused deposition modeling printed part. Moreover, the required time to print the composite part is the same as the required time to print the pure PLA part. However, the elongation of the composite part is lower than the pure PLA part.

Rheological Properties of Natural Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composite for Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM): A Short Review

“…Such as, smaller diameter of filament size, might cause the gripping filament in the extrusion to fail, but a filament too large for the nozzle will not be forced out by the servo motor. Table 1 shows some of researchers have printed specimens and functional products using natural fiber reinforced composite (NFRC) materials such as ABS-fiberglass [18], PLA-pineapple leaf fiber [19], iron-nylon [20], ABS-carbon fiber [1], ABS-oil palm fiber [21], and PLA-wood dusk [22]. As a result, natural fibers have made a significant contribution to the development of feedstock material for FDM.…”

Biodegradable Poly(Lactic Acid) Nanocomposites for Fused Deposition Modeling 3D Printing

“…Pineapple leaf fiber is currently used for wallpaper, textiles, and rope. This fiber has a diameter ranging from 0.1 to 0.5 mm, length ranging from 55 to 75 cm, tensile strength between 170 and 1627 MPa, and an elongation before break of 0.8 to 2.4% [70]. Interestingly, the pineapple leaf fibers do not require functionalization and can feed through a typical FDM setup with the PLA filament rather than the embedding method required for other continuous fibers depicted in Figure 8 The addition of continuous fibers brings into question the recyclability and biodegradability of the resulting new composites.…”

“…At 210 °C increasing the feed rate decreased the tensile strength. Increasing the extrusion temperature from 200 to 210 °C increased the tensile strength from 85.30 MPa to 101.51 MPa at a feed rate of 15 mm/s [ 70 ].…”

Application of Taguchi Method to Optimize the Parameter of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) Using Oil Palm Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

“…Recently, many researchers employed natural fiber reinforced composite (NFRC) materials such as PLA/pineapple [ 17 ], iron/nylon [ 18 ], ABS/fiberglass [ 19 ], ABS/carbon fibers [ 1 ], and PLA/wood [ 20 ] to create specimens for mechanical testing using FDM. All of these factors should be optimized and controlled efficiently in FDM to produce high dimensional accuracy, quality of printed parts, less distortion, reduced porosity, and superior mechanical properties [ 21 ].…”