Internal structure of short fiber reinforced thermoplastics manufactured with fused filament fabrication
Alp Şık, Mahoor Mehdikhani, Jeroen Soete, Stepan V. Lomov, Hamed Tanabi, Baris Sabuncuoglu
Abstract. Due to the layer-by-layer printing nature of fused filament fabrication of short fiber reinforced thermoplastics, the microstructural properties of these materials, such as fiber volume fractions and fiber orientations will be different across different cross-sections or sub-volumes. This study investigates the variability in the internal structure of a glass fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite by scanning different-sized specimens under X-ray computed tomography. Scanned images are divided into equal-sized sub-volumes that cover the entire volume, either with an exact fit or with overlaps, depending on the size of the sub-volume. Fiber volume fractions and fiber orientations are analyzed over these sub-volumes. Results show that analyzing only 42.2% of the scanned volume provides an estimation of fiber volume fraction around 1% of error. Fiber orientation distributions are determined to be similar between layers of the same printing orientation.
Keywords
Short Fibers, Fiber Volume Fraction, Fiber Orientation, X-Ray Computed Tomography
Published online 5/7/2025, 10 pages
Copyright © 2025 by the author(s)
Published under license by Materials Research Forum LLC., Millersville PA, USA
Citation: Alp Şık, Mahoor Mehdikhani, Jeroen Soete, Stepan V. Lomov, Hamed Tanabi, Baris Sabuncuoglu, Internal structure of short fiber reinforced thermoplastics manufactured with fused filament fabrication, Materials Research Proceedings, Vol. 54, pp 295-304, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21741/9781644903599-32
The article was published as article 32 of the book Material Forming
Content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
References
[1] P. Parandoush and D. Lin, A review on additive manufacturing of polymer-fiber composites, Composite Structures 182 (2017) 36-53. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2017.08.088
[2] H. Brooks and S. Molony, Design and evaluation of additively manufactured parts with three dimensional continuous fibre reinforcement, Materials & Design 90 (2016) 276-283. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matdes.2015.10.123
[3] G. W. Melenka, B. K. O. Cheung, J. S. Schofield, M. R. Dawson and J. P. Carey, Evaluation and prediction of the tensile properties of continuous fiber-reinforced 3D printed structures, Composite Structures 153 (2016) 866-875. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2016.07.018
[4] X. Li, Z. Ni, S. Bai and B. Lou, Preparation and Mechanical Properties of Fiber Reinforced PLA for 3D Printing Materials, IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 322 (2018) 022012. doi: https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899X/322/2/022012
[5] X. Tian, T. Liu, C. Yang, Q. Wang and D. Li, Interface and performance of 3D printed continuous carbon fiber reinforced PLA composites, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 88 (2016) 198-205. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2016.05.032
[6] K. L. Pickering, M. G. Bader and A. Kimber, Damage accumulation during the failure of uniaxial carbon fibre composites, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 29 (1998) 435-441.
[7] J. R. Raney, B. G. Compton, J. Mueller, T. J. Ober, K. Shea and J. A. Lewis, Rotational 3D printing of damage-tolerant composites with programmable mechanics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115 (2018) 1198-1203. doi: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1715157115
[8] P. A. Kumar Jain, S. Sattar, D. Mulqueen, D. Pedrazzoli, S. G. Kravchenko and O. G. Kravchenko, Role of annealing and isostatic compaction on mechanical properties of 3D printed short glass fiber nylon composites, Additive Manufacturing 51 (2022) 102599. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2022.102599
[9] S. Blassiau, A. R. Bunsell and A. Thionnet, Damage accumulation processes and life prediction in unidirectional composites, Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences 463 (2007) 1135-1152. doi: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspa.2007.1817
[10] N. Pagano, On the micromechanical failure modes in a class of ideal brittle matrix composites. Part 1. Coated-fiber composites, Composites Part B: Engineering 29 (1998) 93-119. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1359-8368(97)00002-4
[11] I. Baran, I. Straumit, O. Shishkina and S. V. Lomov, X-ray computed tomography characterization of manufacturing induced defects in a glass/polyester pultruded profile, Composite Structures 195 (2018) 74-82. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2018.04.030
[12] P. Boisse, R. Akkerman, P. Carlone, L. Kärger, S. V. Lomov and J. A. Sherwood, Advances in composite forming through 25 years of ESAFORM, International Journal of Material Forming 15 (2022) 39. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12289-022-01682-8
[13] P. Boisse, R. Akkerman, J. Cao, J. Chen, S. Lomov and A. Long, “Composites Forming,” in Advances in Material Forming, Paris, F. Chinesta and E. Cueto (Eds.), Springer Paris, (2007). 61-79, doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-2-287-72143-4_5.
[14] A. Y. Sasov, Microtomography, Journal of Microscopy 147 (1987) 179-192. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2818.1987.tb02830.x
[15] I. Straumit, D. Vandepitte, M. Wevers and S. V. Lomov, Identification of the flax fibre modulus based on an impregnated quasi-unidirectional fibre bundle test and X-ray computed tomography, Composites Science and Technology 151 (2017) 124-130. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2017.07.029
[16] I. Straumit, S. V. Lomov and M. Wevers, Quantification of the internal structure and automatic generation of voxel models of textile composites from X-ray computed tomography data, Composites Part A: Applied Science and Manufacturing 69 (2015) 150-158. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesa.2014.11.016
[17] R. Karamov, L. M. Martulli, M. Kerschbaum, I. Sergeichev, Y. Swolfs and S. V. Lomov, Micro-CT based structure tensor analysis of fibre orientation in random fibre composites versus high-fidelity fibre identification methods, Composite Structures 235 (2020) 111818. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compstruct.2019.111818
[18] J. Yan, E. Demirci, A. Ganesan and A. Gleadall, Extrusion width critically affects fibre orientation in short fibre reinforced material extrusion additive manufacturing, Additive Manufacturing 49 (2022). doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addma.2021.102496
