Effect of print orientation on tensile and shear properties of 3D printed lap joints

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a cutting-edge manufacturing technique that uses additive manufacturing-capable materials such as ceramics, polymers, metals, titanium, base metals, and composites to create components with precise characteristics and complicated designs. A 3D printing method that is quickly expanding is fused deposition modelling (FDM). Nevertheless, the majority of fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology only accepts acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) or poly lactic acid (PLA) as printing media. In this study, the effect of printing orientation on mechanical and shear characteristics of PLA specimens made using fused deposition modelling (FDM) has been examined. Tensile analysis depicted that loading along the direction (0°) has higher tensile strength and elongation compared to other orientations like perpendicular to the loading direction (90°) and inclined to the loading direction (45°). The 3D-printed single-lap joint (SLJ) has been prepared and tested under tensile behaviour, and shear properties indicated that samples prepared using (0°) print orientation have the highest load-carrying capacity of 2865 N and shear strength of 4.58 MPa compared to other printing orientations. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) was performed on the 3D printed SLJ failed samples to evaluate the failure analysis.