Influence of Thermal Cycling on Friction, Wear, and Damage Evolution of Fused Deposition Modeling of 3D‐Printed Glass Fiber Reinforced Polylactic Acid Composites

ABSTRACT

This research work investigated the effect of the cyclic thermo‐hygrometric aging regime between −20°C and +40°C with 0–400 cycles on the reciprocating tribological properties of fused deposition modeling (FDM) printed polylactic acid (PLA) and the same material reinforced with 10 wt.% and 15 wt.% of glass fiber GF. The samples were analyzed for wear through non‐contact laser profilometry, scanning electron microscopy, and thermal gravimetric analysis. The neat PLA showed a non‐monotonic wear profile since it was observed that the wear volume of this material increased drastically from 0.033 to 0.335 mm ³ after 200 cycles at 10 N, and finally, achieved a maximum value of 2.042 mm ³ after 400 cycles subjected to 20 N. However, the reinforcing GF changed such profile, reducing by up to 83% the wear volume. The most interesting result is that the combination of 15 wt.% of GF in a polymer subjected to 200 cycles produced a regime where the coefficient of friction (COF) was greater than unity (1.37), despite having no increase in the volumetric wear loss (Δ = 4.5%). Therefore, it is possible to conclude that there is a decoupling between the processes due to debonding of the interfaces and the third‐body wear mechanism. Factorial ANOVA ( R ²  = 99.32%) showed that Material × Cycle × Load interaction (29.39%) was the main contribution to this effect.