Additive manufacturing of glass-fiber reinforced composites using FDM 3D printer

FDM 3D printing method, among additive manufacturingmethods, has grown substantially due to its simplicity andlow cost. Nowadays, it has enormous applications invarious fields of additive manufacturing. Because of itslaminar nature and weak adhesion between layers in thisprocess, final parts have lower strength compared to thosein traditional methods such as injection molding. Theselimitations suppress application of this technology inmaking complex polymer parts that should bear multi-axialloads. In this study, in order to increase strength ofproduced parts by fused deposition modeling (FDM)process, continuous glass fibers have been added to printedsamples in order to produce a composite material.Successful strategy and methods were implemented toembed continuous glass fiber into the FDM process toachieve the goal of substantially increasing the 3D printedobjects. The results show that by adding only 4% volumefraction of continuous glass fiber to PLA during printing,tensile strength increases more than 50%.