Steel-PLA Composite 3D Printing: Tensile Strength and Geometric Precision

Most of FDM 3D technique use filaments made of plastic as the feeder or raw material. Therefore, its application limited to prototyping purpose. Recently, some filaments made of metal and plastic available in the market, which makes it possible to print functional components. However, there is a very limited number of published papers on mechanical properties and their accuracy. This research aims to find the optimal parameters of tensile strength and dimensional accuracy on 3D printing specimens made of steel-PLA. Some of the combined parameters are infill pattern, raster angle, print speed and bed temperature. This study used a delta-type 3D printer to print out specimens with dimensions according to ASTM D638 Type I. The results of this study are a combination that has optimal tensile strength values infill pattern honeycomb, raster angle 90°, print speed 80 mm/s and bed temperature 45°C. As for the combination with optimal dimensional accuracy, the parameters for infill pattern triangle, raster angle 90°, print speed 80 mm/s and bed temperature 60° are obtained.