Tensile Properties and Damage Mechanisms of a 3D Printed Bio-Sourced Material with a Rectangular Shape

In many industries, there is a need to develop more lightweight materials for a wide range of load situations. The common process to achieve this is mainly the utilization of architectural sandwiches where two skins are printed on an architectural nucleus. Architectural nuclei are known for their structural diversity where each structure provides specific mechanical and dynamic properties that adapt to several industrial sectors. In this paper, tensile properties and failure mechanisms of a rectangular nucleus are studied. The rectangular nuclei are made from a bio-based material which is flax fibers-reinforced polylactic acid. A Raise3DPro2 Plus printer is used to fabricate the specimens. Several tensile tests are performed on the rectangular nuclei with different relative densities of the unit cell. The aim is to study the relative density effect of rectangular nuclei on the tensile properties and the damage characteristics of this material. Acoustic emission technology is applied to quantify the material failure mechanisms. The main results of this study show a very significant effect of nucleus density on the structural Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio. A numerical model is developed in this study. A good correlation is observed between the experimental results and the numerical predictions.