INFLUENCE OF THE BUILD AXIS AND ANGLE ON THE PROPERTIES OF 3D PRINTED PLA

Additive manufacturing is one of the sought-after methods for on-demand printing of customized parts. Although it has several advantages, namely design complexity, topologically optimized parts, tool-less and inventory-less manufacturing, etc., it also has challenges in terms of print parameter-dependent mechanical properties. The present paper studies the influence of the build orientation and angle on the tensile and flexural properties of fused-deposition-modelling (FDM) printed polylactic acid (PLA) samples. The samples are printed in different orientations including 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, 75° and 90° with respect to the X- and Y-axis. From the tensile and flexural studies, we can infer that the orientation of the print plays a significant role, influencing the tensile and flexural properties. The X-axis build orientation and 75° build angle are preferred owing to better tensile and flexural properties compared to the other angles and Y-orientation.