Optimization of adhesion performance of 3D printed polymer parts by Taguchi method

The additive manufacturing technique, which has developed technologically in the last years, has considerable superiority when it is compared to conventional manufacturing methods. The part sizes manufactured by additive manufacturing are within certain limits owing to technological constraints. The joining of parts produced by additive manufacturing is an important solution to break dimensional restrictions. Adhesive joints, which are gradually increasing their usage in the industry, offer more feasible and practical ways of joining three-dimensional printed materials than other joining methods. In this work, the adhesion performance of sheets fabricated from Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Acrylonitride Butadiene Styrene (ABS) filaments by using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) technology was researched with respect to different fabrication parameters using a single-lap adhesive joint geometry. In the production of single-lap adhesive joints, 3 different epoxy adhesives (DP460, Loctite 9492, Loctite 9466) were employed. PLA and ABS sheets were fabricated with different infill ratios (50%, 75% and 100%) and various raster angle combinations (0°, 0°/90°, 45°/45°). The experimental work was designed in accordance with the Taguchi L18 experimental design method and tensile test samples were produced. The effects of the production parameters on the experimental results were commented by Taguchi and ANOVA analyses. At the end of the tensile tests, the maximum failure load was determined as 1989 N and the minimum failure load as 916 N. The relationship between the failure loads calculated at the end of the experiments and the parameters employed in the study was modeled via regression analyses.