TRIBOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR ASSESSMENT OF 3D PRINTED PLA+ SAMPLES IMPREGNATED WITH LIQUID ANAEROBIC METHACRYLATE LUBRICANT

Abstract

Nowadays, the world of production and manufacturing engineering has been witnessed a remarkable development in manufacturing techniques. 3D printing additive manufacturing method is the last witness of that progress. As a result of appearing additive manufacturing technique, it had to be studied it on the tribology field, which plays a crucial role in most of the engineering applications and our life. Therefore, the effect of infill pattern (Grid, Triangles, and Concentric) and infill density (20%, 60%, and 100%) parameters have been studied in this paper in each dry and lubricant modes. The experimental results presented that the highest and lowest values of friction coefficient were occurred in cases of the Grid sample with 100% infill density and without lubrication, and the Triangles sample with 20% infill density and with lubrication, respectively. The lower friction coefficient is linked with the lower infill density (20%) because of the lower contact surfaces. This could be attributed to the lower contact surfaces which are subjected to friction. And the highest and the lowest values of wear rates were took placed in the cases of Grid sample with 20% infill density and without lubrication, and Grid sample with 20% infill density and with lubrication, respectively. The wear rate behavior is attributed to the protective film of lubrication which prevents the surface damage and wear. INTRODUCTION The economics in the industrial sectors have attained much attention and became a global attitude in recent days. Rapid prototyping offers many economic benefits over the traditional manufacturing techniques in which it cuts the costs of skilled workers, decreases the manufacturing time, is suitable for complex products, etc., [1]. 3D printing is considered one of the most common methods of additive manufacturing which affords good economics of production along with reasonable accuracy, [2]. Due to the numerous advantages of 3d printing additive manufacturing, the applications of this technique extend to aerospace, automotive, medical, civil aviation applications, [3]. 3D printing employs thermoplastic heat-formable materials (PLA, ABS, etc.), [4]. However, the 3d printing additive manufacturing could overcome many problems where the recent manufacturing techniques suffer from, the mechanical and operating performance of the printed products is still a concern, and the question of whether the printed product can compete with the products which are fabricated by the traditional methods is still open. Therefore, many researchers investigated the mechanical properties of the printed parts