Effect of 3D printing speed on mechanical and thermal properties of wood-PLA composite filament

This study was carried out to examine the effect of the change in printing speed on the material properties of printing wood flour-filled filaments on a 3D printer. First, hornbeam wood flour was added to the Polylactic Acid (PLA) polymer and then mixed in a twin-screw extruder, and then a wood-PLA composite filament with a diameter of 1.75 mm was produced. Then, test samples were printed from the produced wood-PLA composite filament at different printing speeds (40-50-60 mm/s) using a 3D printer. Tensile strength and hardness tests were performed to determine the mechanical properties of the 3D printed samples. According to the tensile strength test results, the tensile strengths of the 3D printed samples exhibited different values with the change in printing speed. The highest tensile strength value was determined as 23.02 MPa at a printing speed of 50 mm/s, and the lowest tensile strength value was 22.14 MPa at a printing speed of 40 mm/s. According to the Shore D test results, the lowest hardness value was measured as 85.33 at a printing speed of 40 mm/s, and the highest value was measured as 86.10 at a printing speed of 60 mm/s. According to the Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results, the crystallinity percentage of PLA first increased and then decreased with the increase in 3D printing speed. In addition, 3D printing speed did not have much effect on the melting temperatures of PLA.