LAUSR

Recent years have witnessed the exponential shift in the designing of products and manufacturing in quick time with improved quality through numerous Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques. This paper examines the flexural properties of the carbon-based PLA composites through one of the most popular AM processes i.e. Fused Filament Fabrication. The specimens are prepared based on three input parameters i.e. layer thickness, LT (0.1, 0.15, 0.2 mm), feed rate, FR (20, 40, 60 mm/s) and raster orientation, RO (0°, 45°, 90°). The variation in flexural strength at each layer thickness is evaluated with combination of feed rates and raster orientations. The experiments reveal that flexural strength decreases on increasing the layer thickness and feed rate because of poor bond strength between the layers. The flexural strength increases by 48% (for 20 mm/sec FR) on varying raster orientation (RO) from 90° to 0° at 0.1 mm LT. Similarly, the flexural strength increases only by 10% (for 20 mm/sec FR) on varying RO from 90° to 0° at 0.15 mm LT. For 0.2 mm LT, the strength increases by only 6% on varying RO from 90° to 0° for 20 mm/sec FR. This indicates that mechanical anisotropy is reduced due to more evenly distribution of carbon fibres resulting in strong fibre-PLA bond. The best value of flexural strength at each layer thickness (113.189 MPa, 119.138 MPa and 106.12 MPa for 0.1, 0.15 and 0.2 mm, respectively) based on the considered parameter combinations is taken forward for analyzing the surface profile parameters. The best surface finish having roughness value Ra = 0.277 µm and high flexural strength, 119.138 MPa, is obtained having parameter combination of Layer Thickness = 0.15 mm, Feed Rate = 20 mm/s, Raster Orientation = 0°.