Finite element simulation of additive manufacturing process of carbon allotropes

In a wide range of technical applications, the need for strong yet lightweight materials has significantly increased. Allotropes of carbon are combinations of several elements that exist as crystals. The production of components using 3D printing commonly employs a variety of infill patterns to speed up printing with the use of less material. The proposed study entails employing the chosen 3D printing methods to analyze tensile specimens made from carbon allotropes. On 3D printed parts, the von-Mises stress has been predicted using a finite element simulation. As part of the simulation process, parts are prepared in solid modeling software and then put under tensile loads in ANSYS to determine the desired results. Three distinct materials namely carbon nanotubes (CNT), graphene, and carbon fiber polylactic acid composite (CF+PLA), and two infill patterns namely honeycomb and rectilinear have been investigated and compared, where it showed that CNT material with honeycomb infill pattern shows better results than graphene and CF+PLA. Additionally, the outcomes of simulation results are compared with CF+PLA specimen created with Creality Ender 3 fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer. The CF+PLA specimen was fabricated according to ASTM D638 having different process parameters. The findings revealed that the tensile strength of carbon allotropes with a honeycomb pattern is increased by 20% when compared to materials made of commercial CF+PLA with a rectilinear pattern. This improvement in strength is attributable to the lower void content and higher layer-to-layer bonding during this process which can improve the components for the aerospace and defense sectors.