Friction and Wear Characteristics of Polylactic Acid for 3D Printing under Reciprocating Condition

초록

The objective of this study is to evaluate the friction and wear characteristics of 3D printed specimen using polylactic acid (PLA), which is the material widely used for 3D printing with Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) method. Since 3D printing refers to processes that sequentially deposit material onto a powder bed with inkjet printer heads, some studies are carried out for materials, printing technique, and so on. PLA is the most widely used material for FDM process because it is cheap and has relatively higher strength. However, the parts printed with FDM have poor surface quality since they are printed layer by layer. In this study, the specimens are printed using PLA with FDM process with different infill density, direction against sliding direction and normal loads. The friction & wear reciprocating tester is used to evaluate the friction and wear properties of PLA. The surface of specimen is examined by electron microscope before and after the test. Also, the wear volume loss and wear coefficient for each normal load have been obtained. The results show that the friction and wear properties of PLA specimen change with a different infill density of printed parts.