Fused-Deposition Modeling 3D Printing of Short-Cut Carbon-Fiber-Reinforced PA6 Composites for Strengthening, Toughening, and Light Weighting

作者：Bin Sun, Suhail Mubarak, Guocun Zhang, Kangming Peng, Xueling Hu, Zhang Qia, Lixin Wu, Jianlei Wang · 发表于：Polymers · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.3390/polym15183722 · 被引用次数：42 · 研究领域：Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Technologies、Manufacturing Process and Optimization、Additive Manufacturing Materials and Processes

Additive manufacturing of carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) has been widely used in many fields. However, issues such as inconsistent fiber orientation distribution and void formation during the layer stacking process have hindered the further optimization of the composite material’s performance. This study aimed to address these challenges by conducting a comprehensive investigation into the influence of carbon fiber content and printing parameters on the micro-morphology, thermal properties, and mechanical properties of PA6-CF composites. Additionally, a heat treatment process was proposed to enhance the interlayer bonding and tensile properties of the printed composites in the printing direction. The experimental results demonstrate that the PA6-CF25 composite achieved the highest tensile strength of 163 MPa under optimal heat treatment conditions: 120 °C for 7.5 h. This corresponds to a significant tensile strength enhancement of 406% compared to the unreinforced composites, which represents the highest reported improvement in the current field of CFRP-fused deposition 3D printing. Additionally, we have innovatively developed a single-layer monofilament CF-OD model to quantitatively analyze the influence of fiber orientation distribution on the properties of the composite material. Under specific heat treatment conditions, the sample exhibits an average orientation angle μ of 0.43 and an orientation angle variance of 8.02. The peak frequency of fiber orientation clos...