Bending Behavior of 3D Printed Polymeric Sandwich Structures with Various Types of Core Topologies

Abstract

In this study, bending performance and energy absorption capabilities of sandwich structures with different types of core topologies. Specifically, four types of core geome-tries including cylindrical, hexagonal, square, and triangular were investigated. Sandwich structures were fabricated using Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) 3D printing method using polylactic acid (PLA) and carbon fiber reinforced polylactic acid (CF-PLA). The ma-terial properties of PLA and CF-PLA were determined via tensile test. Three-point bending tests were performed to achieve the energy absorption performance of sandwich struc-tures. The findings of the bending test show that the core topology has a substantial im-pact on sandwich constructions' capacity to absorb energy. Additionally, it has been ob-served that the use of different materials affects the energy absorption capacity of sand-wich structures.

Keywords

• 3D printing
• carbon fiber-reinforced PLA
• energy absorption
• fused deposition modelling
• sandwich structure

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