Design and development of 3D printed anti-microbial face mask by using fused deposition modeling

Basically, there is a shortage of face masks during the global breakdown. Face masks are needed to people in all the countries. In public places the officials suggested the use of conventional masks. These are effective, but having few problems such as unable fit on the faces, eight hours lifecycle, Corona Virus Deise-19 viruses livening for 3 days on various surfaces on the masks. In order to overcome these problems 3-dimensional printed mask are very good suitable. In order to avoid these problems use Polylatic Acid (PLA) and anti-microbial Polylatic Acid (PLA) materials for face masks. The mask designed in CATIA software and 3D printed with anti-microbial PLA and PLA materials using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process. Here the PLA and anti-microbial PLA masks are not directly tested and analyzed, but used tensile (ASTM D638) and flexural (ASTM D790) specimens. These specimens modeled and analyzed using CATIA software and printed by FDM machine. Maximum Von misses stress of 8.69e+007 N/m2 is observed in the tensile PLA specimen at the load of 2700N and 9.01e+007 N/m2 in the tensile anti-microbial PLA specimen at 2800N under the simulated condition using CATIA software. Maximum Von misses stress of 9.92e+006 N/m2 in the flexural PLA specimen and1.49e+007N/m2 in the flexural anti-microbial PLA specimen are seen on for the load of120N in the simulation. Using Instron UTM 60Tons, the maximum tensile strength obtained for PLA and anti-bacterial PLA specimens are 36.466MPa and 41.132MPa respectively. Whereas the experimental flexural strength noticed in PLA specimen is 62.67 MPa and anti-bacterial PLA specimens is 91.43 MPa.