Mechanical Performance of L-Shaped Corner Joints Manufactured by 3D Printing with a Polylactic Acid–Wood Composite

Abstract

Filaments were produced with eight different blends for use in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printers by adding 10% and 15% linden and oak wood flours as support materials to a polylactic acid (PLA) matrix. Wood polymer L-shaped connectors were printed from the produced filaments in the FDM printer. These L-shaped connectors were fixed to the particleboard corner joints to produce L-shaped corner joint specimens. These specimens were subjected to cross-compression and cross-tension tests using special molds in a universal testing machine to determine the effects of wood flour, wood species, and additive ratio on cross-compression and tensile moments. Thermogravimetric analysis, differential thermal analysis, and differential scanning calorimetric analyses were performed to determine the thermal properties of the wood-polymer composites, while scanning electron microscope imaging was performed to determine their morphological structures. Additionally, the tensile strength of the composites was also determined. The results showed that the mechanical properties of the samples produced with different wood flour types and additive ratios were lower than those of pure PLA. However, in diagonal compression and diagonal tensile tests conducted using L-joint elements obtained from different wood species and printed on an FDM printer.