Effect of printing characteristics for the incorporation of hexagonal-shaped lattice structure on the PLA polymeric material

Additive manufacturing is an emerging technique for manufacturing 3-D objects from the design of the component. Lattice structures are incorporated in metal and polymeric materials and find various applications in aerospace, marine, and other engineering fields. The present research work concentrates on incorporating hexagonal-shaped lattice structures through the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. The optimization was carried out by varying the printing process parameters such as infill density (80%, 90%, and 100%), layer thickness (0.1 mm, 0.2 mm, and 0.3 mm), and printing temperature (195°C, 205°C, and 215°C). The impact of printing parameters with respect to the quality characteristics responses such as tensile strength/density and dimensional area error can be considered for the optimization process. The samples are prepared using an L9 orthogonal array, and the process condition was optimized using the Taguchi optimization technique. The tensile strength/density is observed to be higher at a lower infill density of about 80%, a minimum layer height of 0.1 mm, and a maximum extrusion temperature of 215°C. From the ANOVA analysis results, the influential parameters sequence for the tensile strength/density was infill density > layer thickness > printing temperature. And the sequence of effective parameters for obtaining the lowest dimensional area error was infill density > printing temperature > layer thickness. Therefore, this research has found the application for incorporating hexagonal-shaped lattice structure in the PLA material. The material is capable of structural applications in automotive and marine applications, etc.