A Comparative Experimental Study on the Influence of Porosity Grades on Tensile and Bending Functions Using the Fuzzy VIKOR Decision Model

The porosity gradient in the Fusion Deposition Modeling (FDM) technique is a significant mechanism adopted in the functional materials to reduce the model's weight as an economical procedure. However, restricting the enhancement of the tensile and bending functions represents another aspect of the porosity in this technique. Besides, the variance of these functions in the 3D printing's filaments also contributes to employing the suitable type of filament. Therefore, studies that exposed Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) filament, specifically, boosted the modeling process depending on orientation angle, layer thickness, and filling ratio. From here, this study focuses on employing a variety of porosity grades to experimentally investigate the influence of these grades on the tensile and bending functions, utilizing Fuzzy-Vikor as a multi-criteria hybrid decision to select the optimal decision. Besides, the porosity grades used in this work were 0%, 20%, 0%-20%, 0%-20%-0%, 40%, 0%-40%, and 0%-40%-0% with PLA and ABS filaments. In addition, 45˚, 0.25 mm, and 35 mm/s are constant parameters for raster angle, layer thickness, and printing speed consecutively. Hence, the final decision outcomes based on this multi-criteria hybrid decision were 0% for PLA and 40% for ABS, representing the optimal and worst-case successively. In addition, the micrograph investigation of the fracture zone produced by the tensile test for the optimal case revealed homogeneity in this zone, with only slight micro-voids and gas pores compared to the worst-case.