A statistical analysis on effect of process parameters on tensile, flexural, and hardness characteristics of wood–polylactic acid composites using FDM 3D printing

The most popular technique for polymer additive manufacturing is fused deposition modelling (FDM), which is growing in popularity in a variety of engineering applications since it makes complex parts quickly. The proper selection of the process parameters has a significant impact on the mechanical qualities of 3D printed items. The study delved into the mechanical properties of Wood–Polylactic acid (Wood-PLA) composites, specifically focusing on tensile strength, flexural strength, and durometer hardness, along with the impact of various processing factors. The principal effects of four FDM processing parameters—infill density, layer height, infill pattern, and printing speed—were examined using the Taguchi design of experiments. Wood-PLA 3D printer and a commercially accessible fused deposition modelling (FDM) machine was utilized for the experimentation purpose. In this study, The strength of the processing settings was shown by the mechanical properties of the manufactured FDM components. L9 orthogonal array was used for design of experiment. The fabricated samples were measured and tested in accordance with ASTM D638, ASTM D790, and ASTM2240, and the results were compared to the original 3D computer-aided design model. Design Expert's statistical analysis tools were used to construct an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to evaluate the significance of the variables and their interactions in terms of tensile strength, flexural strength, and durometer hardness. In order to check the validity of the results, scanning electron microscope (SEM) was performed.