Project Team
Students
Trent Townsend
Mechanical Engineering
Penn State Harrisburg
Faculty Mentors
Ola Rashwan
Penn State Harrisburg
Mechanical Engineering
Matthew Caputo
Penn State Shenango
Engineering
Project
https://sites.psu.edu/mcreu/files/formidable/2/MCREU-Poster-PDF-Trent-Townsend.pdf
Project Video
Project Abstract
With the innovations in additive manufacturing and the increasing awareness of pollution, there has been culminating interest and a pressing need in this industry to create new materials that both expand the arsenal of usable materials for material extrusion additive manufacturing technology (MEAMT) and are environmentally friendly. However, for new filaments, the optimal printing parameters and the 3D printer setup need to be investigated for the customized filaments to use without major defects or waste of resources. Previous research has investigated the potential of making filament for MEAMT with recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) and compared it to virgin PET filament to prove their potential as a sustainable additive manufacturing material. But there is a lack of study into the optimization of the printing process for rPET with additives. Additives which could improve certain physical properties of rPET, including mechanical properties. This research attempts to optimize the 3D printing parameters to efficiently utilize variations of rPET filament with reinforcements and additives with the objective of high print quality, acceptable dimensional accuracy, and shorter printer time for an efficient MEAMT process and improved physical properties. These printing settings need to be reproducible with comparable outcomes. The variants of rPET used in this research are rPET with short carbon fiber (SCF) and rPET with a chain extender and thermal stabilizer; commercial PETG was used as a reference material. These additives and reinforcements are added to the rPET filament to minimize the negative effects of recycling on physical properties and to create filaments that can produce 3D printed parts that meet the above-mentioned criteria. This study then assessed If the additives and reinforcements changed the efficiency or necessary parameter values of the printing process. The printed specimens are the standard test specimens for tensile, IZOD impact, and 3-point flexural tests according to American Standard for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards: D638 − 14, D256 − 10, and D790 − 17 respectively. The optimal parameters were determined through trial-and-error and analysis of related literature, then verified through dimensional accuracy testing, efficiency of printing process, and presence of defects. The final optimized parameters include extruder temperature = 260°C, printing bed temperature = 90°C, print speed = 50mm/s, the nozzle diameter = 0.4mm (with Raise3D nozzle), shell count = 2, and with ironing on; all these parameter values could be used with rPET, rPET with SCF, and rPET with a chain extender and thermal stabilizer efficiently. The inclusion of a printer enclosure and filament dryer is also recommended for an improved MEAMT process. The conducted research has valuable impact in additive manufacturing by demonstrating the effectiveness of rPET filaments, supporting that the tested additives and reinforcements do not noticeably affect the efficiency of the MEAMT process, and that the ongoing research could be extended to other sustainable materials and manufacturing.
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