Oil palm (Elaeis Guineensis) fiber reinforced thermoplastic acrylonitrile butadiene styrene composites for fused deposition modeling

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) was the most frequently tool employed by companies to produce goods as well as conduct research and development. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament was the most common filament for FDM. In comparison to other commercial filaments, ABS exhibited good mechanical performance and widely used in product applications. Findings of previous studies reported that printed parts by using current materials showed less strength, ductility and were not environmentally friendly. All these issues have forced researchers and scientists to develop natural fiber-based filaments for FDM to enhance the performance of current thermoplastic materials. Therefore, this research focused on the development and characterization of oil palm fiber (Elaeis guineensis) reinforced ABS composites for FDM. The method used in this research was divided into four phases: granule preparation and rheology analysis of oil palm fiber-reinforced ABS composites; filament fabrication and evaluation; FDM parameter optimization; and analysis of the effect of fiber content on the mechanical, thermal, and physical properties of printed parts. The first objective of the research was to analyze the rheology behavior of oil palm fiber-reinforced ABS composites. Findings showed that increment in fiber content increased the viscosity and shear thinning effect. The non-Newtonian index (n) of composites increased as the number of shear rates rose, indicating that the fibers content had a significant impact on the rheological behavior. Second objective of the research was to investigate the tensile strength, Young’s modulus, dimensional stability and porosity of the filaments. Tensile and porosity test were then performed and the diameter of filament was measured. Results showed that increasing the fiber content enhanced tensile strength by 60% and Young’s modulus by 22.8%. Increasing the fiber loading from 3 wt% to 7 wt% resulted in an increase in porosity percentage and a reduction in density. The filaments' diameter variation ranged from -0.21 mm to 0.04 mm. The third objective was to investigate the optimum printing parameters of FDM. The layer thickness, orientation, infill density, and printing speed were selected as optimization parameters. The experiments were designed by Taguchi method with an L9 orthogonal array. The findings revealed that the optimum printing parameter was 0.4 mm layer thickness, with flat (0°) orientation, 50% infill density and 10 mm/s printing speed. Finally, this research analysed the effect of fiber content on the mechanical, thermal and physical properties of oil palm fiber composites. The results showed that 3 wt% fiber composite had the highest tensile strength and tensile modulus at 31 MPa and 1.6 GPa respectively. After the fiber was added, the thermal stability improved and intermolecular hydrogen bonding increased. The composite sample became more resistant to moisture when more fibers were added. In regard to the thickness swelling test, 7 wt% oil palm fiber composite showed good accuracy than 3 wt% and 5 wt%. In conclusion, the study findings revealed that oil palm fibers / ABS composites for FDM showed improved mechanical, thermal and physical properties than ABS plastic. Therefore, this composite filament could be commercialized as a material for FDM with enhanced properties and environmentally friendly.

Text FK 2024 35 - Declaration Form.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (617kB) Text FK 2024 35 - Full Text.pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (11MB) Text FK 2024 35.pdf Restricted to Repository staff only Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (11MB) Official URL or Download Paper: http://ethesis.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/19000

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