INVESTIGATIONS FOR DEVELOMENT OF 3D SCAFFOLDS BY USING IN-HOUSE FDM FILAMENT COMPRISING OF PVC, PP and HAp by Ravinder Sharma
Abstract
The fused deposition modelling (FDM) has emerged as one of the most widely used process for fabrication of 3D functional/non-functional prototypes. The process has been commercially used for various applications in the field of architectural, structural or biomedical engineering (with the aid of various commercially available polymeric materials like ABS, Nylon etc.). All these filaments are available in market ‘as patented material’ and thus add to high cost of the final product (especially, when one is interested in bio-compatible features of the polymeric materials). In this present research work an effort has been made to develop a bio-compatible FDM filament comprising of PVC, PP and HAp, which has been further used to fabricate 3D porous structures. The various input process parameters of FDM (like: infill percentage, layer thickness, and deposition speed) were selected and their effects have been studied with the help of design of experimentation. Further theses process parameters have been optimised for various mechanical, dimensional, surface and thermal properties using analysis of variance. The results of the study highlighted that the infill density and layer thickness have majorly contributed towards the tensile properties (peak load, break load, peak elongation, break elongation and yield stress), whereas infill percentage has major contribution on the surface roughness and hardness of the fabricated parts. The deposition speed has least effect on the mechanical and surface properties of the specimens. The dimensional accuracy has been majorly affected by the deposition speed of the FDM. The SEM microphotographs show that the FDM fabricated 3D structures are having open porous and fibrous structure and hence can be applied for bio-medical applications. Finally the thermal analysis (on DSC) ensures the thermal stability of the material for dental applications.
