On Digital Twinning of 3D Printed PETG-Based Smart Containers for Health Monitoring of Food Articles

Polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) is a commercially acceptable material for storing and transporting food articles (FA). Some recent studies highlighted using smart PETG containers fabricated by fused filament fabrication (FFF) for online health monitoring of pickles (selected as an FA). However, little has been reported on the digital twinning (DT) of 3D-printed PETG-based smart containers for online health monitoring of an FA. This study highlights the development of a dynamic reduced order model (ROM) for PETG-based smart containers fabricated by FFF (by considering 03 factors with 03 levels (nozzle temperature (NT) (235/240/245°C), infill density (ID) (60/80/100%), and printing speed (PS) (50/55/60 mm/s) and output as the maximum tensile strength. The best setting of FFF parameters for maximum tensile strength of selected PETG samples is NT 245 °C, PS 50 mm/s, and ID 100%, resulting in a 43.68% improvement. The results are supported by thermal, voltage (V)-current (I), V-resistance (R), dielectric, and morphological analysis. The samples’ dielectric constant (ϵ_r) was evaluated for DT at 20 MHz. The ϵ_r of the best sample was 134% more than that of the worst sample, and the glass transition temperature (Tg) of the worst and best ϵ_r samples was noticed as 74.27 °C and 74.78 °C, respectively. It has been observed that the resistance offered by the worst specimen is 74% more than that of the resistance provided by the best sample, and the porosity of the best and worst samples was 27.36% and 28.11%.