scholarly journals Energy and Eco-Impact Evaluation of Fused Deposition Modeling and Injection Molding of Polylactic Acid

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1875
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Ugo Enemuoh ◽  
Venkata Gireesh Menta ◽  
Abdulaziz Abutunis ◽  
Sean O’Brien ◽  
Labiba Imtiaz Kaya ◽  
...  

There is limited knowledge about energy and carbon emission performance comparison between additive fused deposition modeling (FDM) and consolidation plastic injection molding (PIM) forming techniques, despite their recent high industrial applications such as tools and fixtures. In this study, developed empirical models focus on the production phase of the polylactic acid (PLA) thermoplastic polyester life cycle while using FDM and PIM processes to produce American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D638 Type IV dog bone samples to compare their energy consumption and eco-impact. It was established that energy consumption by the FDM layer creation phase dominated the filament extrusion and PLA pellet production phases, with, overwhelmingly, 99% of the total energy consumption in the three production phases combined. During FDM PLA production, about 95.5% of energy consumption was seen during actual FDM part building. This means that the FDM process parameters such as infill percentage, layer thickness, and printing speed can be optimized to significantly improve the energy consumption of the FDM process. Furthermore, plastic injection molding consumed about 38.2% less energy and produced less carbon emissions per one kilogram of PLA formed parts compared to the FDM process. The developed functional unit measurement models can be employed in setting sustainable manufacturing goals for PLA production.

2016 ◽  
Vol 78 (10) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nor Aiman Sukindar ◽  
M. K. A. Ariffin ◽  
B. T. Hang Tuah Baharudin ◽  
Che Nor Aiza Jaafar ◽  
Mohd Idris Shah Ismail

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the Rapid Prototyping (RP) technologies. The 3D Printer has been widely used in the fabrication of 3D products. One of the main issues has been to obtain a high quality for the finished parts. The present study focuses on the effect of nozzle diameter in terms of pressure drop, geometrical error as well as extrusion time. While using polylactic acid (PLA) as a material, the research was conducted using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) by manipulating the nozzle diameter, and the pressure drop along the liquefier was observed. The geometrical error and printing time were also calculated by using different nozzle diameters. Analysis shows that the diameter of the nozzle significantly affects the pressure drop along the liquefier which influences the consistency of the road width thus affecting the quality of the product’s finish. The vital aspect is minimizing the pressure drop to be as low as possible, which will lead to a good quality final product. The results from the analysis demonstrate that a 0.2 mm nozzle diameter contributes the highest pressure drop, which is not within the optimum range. In this study, by considering several factors including pressure drop, geometrical error and printing time, a 0.3 mm nozzle diameter has been suggested as being in the optimum range for extruding PLA material using open-source 3D printing. The implication of this result is valuable for a better understanding of the melt flow behavior of the PLA material and for choosing the optimum nozzle diameter for 3D printing.


2020 ◽  
Vol 29 ◽  
pp. 2633366X2096736
Author(s):  
Wangwang Yu ◽  
Lili Dong ◽  
Wen Lei ◽  
Jianan Shi

The research aim of this work was to understand the effects of the soil burial of rice straw on the morphology and properties of 3D-printed rice straw powder (RSP)/polylactic acid (PLA) biocomposites. The rice straw buried in the soil for various days was grounded and sieved into powder at 120 mesh. The RSP was then mixed with PLA at a mass ratio of 15/100 and the mixture was extruded into filament, followed by a fused deposition modeling 3D printing process. The as-prepared products were characterized in terms of morphological, mechanical, thermal, and nonisothermal crystallization properties. The results show that cavities with large holes induced by fused deposition modeling exhibit on the cross section of RSP/PLA biocomposite. The longer the burial duration of rice straw, the more the cavities with large holes could be observed on the surface. Therefore, soil burial of rice straw improved the thermal stability of the biocomposites while depressing their mechanical properties due to the amplification of the cavities. The crystallinity of the biocomposites was maintained at a low level (<9%) before and after the soil burial process.


2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthias C. Wurm ◽  
Tobias Möst ◽  
Bastian Bergauer ◽  
Dominik Rietzel ◽  
Friedrich Wilhelm Neukam ◽  
...  

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