An experimental investigation on the free vibration analysis of PETG material processed by fused deposition modeling

Purpose This study aims to investigate the effects of infill ratio and infill pattern parameters on the dynamic mechanical properties of polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) printed structures. Design/methodology/approach The PETG printed samples were prepared using different infill patterns (three dimensional (3D), honeycomb, honeycomb, rectilinear, triangle, concentric) at various infill ratios (20%, 40%, 60% and 80%). Free vibration experiments were performed to understand the impact of infill pattern and infill ratio parameters on the dynamic mechanical behavior of PETG printed parts in terms of variations on natural frequency, damping ratio, storage and loss modulus. Findings The experimental findings indicated that the examined parameters had remarkable effects on the vibrational characteristics of the samples. Regardless of the infill pattern, an increment in the infill ratio resulted in increases in natural frequency, storage modulus and loss modulus and decreases in damping ratio. It can be said that the concentric pattern exhibited the most desired properties in vibration responses. In conclusion, it is recommended that process parameters such as infill ratio and infill pattern are very crucial and should be taken into account in applications, particularly in the use of PETG that may be exposed to dynamic loads. Originality/value The objective of this study is to present an experimental investigation on the effect of both infill pattern and infill ratio on dynamic mechanical properties such as natural frequency, vibration damping ratio, storage modulus and loss modulus. This is a notable gap in the existing literature on PETG printed structures.