Innovative Foundry Technology and Material Using Fused Deposition Modeling and Polylactic Acid Material in Sand Casing

In sand casting, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printing by using Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) filament is one of the innovative foundry technologies being adopted to substitute traditional pattern making. Several literatures have reported the influence of process parameters such as raster angle and print speed on some mechanical properties of FDM-printed, PLA-prototypes used in other applications. This study investigated the effects of interior fill, top solid layer, and layer height on the compressive strength of rapid patterns for sand casting application. Different values of the process parameters were used to print the pre-defined samples of the PLA-specimens and a compression test was performed on them. The coupled effects of the process parameters on compressive strength were investigated and the optimum values were determined. Interior fill of 36%, layer height of 0.21 mm and top solid layer of 4 were found to produce a FDM-printed, PLApattern that sustained a compaction pressure of 0.61 MPa. A simulation analysis with ANSYS® to compare failure modes of both experiment and model shows a similarity of buckling failure that occurred close to the base of each specimen.