Characterization of Polylactic Acid Filament With Biodegradable Hemp Fiber Infused During Additive Manufacturing Process

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is one of the common methods among the Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes. In this study, hemp fiber, a sustainable, and fast degraded material introduced and mixed with fresh Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament with 3 wt%, 7.5 wt%, and 10 wt% to improve the drawbacks of pure PLA filament and sustain its required properties. The results from the fatigue testing of pure PLA, and various hemp-fiber infused PLA indicated that increasing the wt% content of a hemp fiber infused PLA specimen at a certain point does increase the ultimate bending stress as well as the overall fatigue life of a pure PLA specimen. The 10 wt% hemp fiber specimens provided a 7.32% increase in the mean ultimate flexural strength over pure PLA. The mean of Young’s modulus also increased by 10.65% for the 10 wt% hemp fiber specimen and by 23.05% for the 7.5 wt% hemp fiber specimen over PLA. The 10 wt% hemp fiber specimens also provided a 4.05% increase in fatigue life over PLA. The 3 wt% did not provide a significant improvement in the study. These findings provide insight into the AM processes and lead to the development of environment-friendly composites in the industries.