Abstract
Material extrusion additive manufacuring (MEAM) is a universally adopted additive manufacturing (AM) process for fabricating custom-designed fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composite items; providing affordability, rapid production, and reduced material waste. However, the significant limitations are weaker mechanical performance and surface smoothness. This paper focuses on the optimization of different post-processing and thermal conditions to enhance tensile performance, hardness (shore D), and surface texture of carbon fiber-reinforced polylactic acid (CFPLA) objects. The novelty of this investigation is to systematically examine the effect of separate and combined post-processing treatment, applied in various cooling conditions and sequences, to evaluate their respective influence on overall performance including mechanical and surface attributes. The result demonstrates that different post-processing condition showed different effect on output responses, tensile strength, durometer hardness (Shore D), and roughness profile improved by 22%, 6.3%, and 90% in a corresponding sequence. The optimized condition for mechanical strength and surface quality is thermal processing after hot vapour surface modification with cooling inside the hot air oven, where tensile strength, hardness (shore D), and surface roughness were noted as 50.292 N/mm2, 83, and 0.465 µm respectively, recorded a maximum tensile strength of 51.621 N/mm2 for only heat treatment with oven cooling, while minimum surface roughness of 0.372 µm for only vapour treatment. Heat treatment enhanced mechanical strength, vapour exposure improved surface smoothness, while integrated post treatment enhanced both attributes. Post-fabrication state concurrently enhance all the output factors of end-stage products created by employing fused deposition modelling, thereby increasing the overall capabilities of the AM sector.
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