Sebastiana Hobey
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Minh Hoang Nguyen
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Aerospace Engineering / Engineering
Program:
Authors: Sebastiana Hobey, Mehmet Osar, Minh Hoang Nguyen
Session: Session 5: 2:40 pm – 3:30 pm
Poster: 99
Abstract
3D printing has become a popular manufacturing technology for producing prototypes and secondary structures. In order to use printed materials for load-carrying parts, a clear understanding and thorough characterization of the material failure behavior is critical. This research project investigates how an isotropic polymer material becomes an anisotropic structure when 3D-printed, i.e. the properties are dependent on the printing direction. A large number of 3D-printed PLA rectangular and dog-bone samples were manufactured, tested, and inspected. Various inspection techniques were deployed to observe progressive material damage. These experiments serve to aid in characterizing the failure behavior of these complex materials under different conditions and contribute to developing and validating computational models. The lab seeks to quantify defects of printing directions for thermoplastic materials and continuous carbon-fiber thermoplastic systems. This project utilized a machine that applies a load to the 3D-printed samples until the samples fracture; data is collected and recorded through a synchronized computer program. Photos are simultaneously taken to visually determine the exact moment the sample fractures so that digital image correlation (DIC) procedures can be carried out on the images, thereby generating stress-strain graphs for further analysis. Preliminary results show a significant difference in stiffness and strength between the longitudinal (printing) and transverse directions.
