Process Optimization of Hexagonally Structured Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol and Carbon Fiber Composite with Added Shell Walls

The present work concentrates on incorporating shell wall in the planar type hexagonal lattice structure on the Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol/ carbon fibre composite. The samples are prepared by using Fused Filament Fabrication method and various printing process parameters such as nozzle temperature, layer height, printing speed, and infill density. L9 orthogonal array was advanced for the process optimization of compressive strength and dimensional error responses. Taguchi and Analysis of Variance techniques are followed to predict the optimal printing condition and key influential printing process parameters for the compressive strength and dimensional error responses of the developed Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol/ carbon fiber composite. The optimal combination for finding the higher compressive strength concerning the edges enclosed lattice structure incorporated PETG/CF polymer composite is nozzle temperature of 220 C, layer height of 0.1 mm, infill density of 100%, and printing speed of 20 mm/sec. For dimensional error responses, the experimental error of 0.2592 was measured for the optimized printing condition, and the error percentage was 4.88%. At lower infill density, the shell wall added hexagonal structured PETG/CF sample was compressed quasi-statically, buckled non-uniformly, and slid perpendicular to the loading direction.