Enhanced Mechanical Properties of Metal filled 3D Printed Polymer Composites

The current study investigates the mechanical characteristics of polymer matrix composites (PMCs) having aluminum powder reinforcements, fabricated by fused deposition modeling (FDM). Polymer matrix composite was prepared by amalgamating polylactic acid (PLA) by blending with aluminum powder reinforcement particles in the following compositions: 10 wt% and 20 wt%. The composite filaments were fabricated with a twin-screw extrusion technique. The microstructural characteristic composite samples were investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The mechanical characteristics such as hardness, ultimate tensile strength (UTS), yield strength (YS), and percentage elongation (% EL) of unreinforced PLA composite and aluminum powder-reinforced PLA composites were compared. It was identified that with the incorporation of aluminum powder reinforcements, hardness, UTS, and YS were enhanced, and a reduction in percentage elongation was identified. These characteristics were examined to understand the distribution of aluminum powder reinforcements in the PLA matrix and its influences on the processing parameters of the study. With the 20 wt% addition of aluminum to PLA, the tensile strength increased by 46%, and the yield strength increased by 84%. A reduction in ductility was noted for every incremental addition of aluminum to PLA. © 2022, The Institution of Engineers (India).