Examination of Low-Cyclic Fatigue Tests and Poisson’s Ratio Depending on the Different Infill Density of Polylactide (PLA) Produced by the Fused Deposition Modeling Method

Abstract

This article examines the impact of fatigue cycles on polylactide samples produced by 3D printing using the FDM method. Samples were printed in three infill degree variants: 50%, 75% and 100%. To compere the influence of infill degree on PLA properties, several tests, including the uniaxial tensile test, the low-cycle fatigue test, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), were conducted. Poisson’s ratio has also been studied. Single hysteresis loops were summed to obtain the entire low-fatigue cycle. The infill of density influenced all compared mechanical parameters. The decrease in infill degree caused the reduction of Young’s modulus and shear modulus. For a 100% degree of sample infill, a higher number of transferred load cycles were observed compared to PLA with 75% and 50% of infill. Additionally, the value of the transferred cyclic load before fatigue failure and the dissipation of mechanical energy was the highest for 100% of infill. It is also worth noting that fatigue tests can positively affect the appearance of the PLA structure. Obviously, it depends on the number of load cycles and the infill density. It causes that if the goal is to transfer as much load as possible over a long period of time, the maximum filling of the printed element should be used.