3D Printed Bio-Based Sandwich with an Anti-trichiral Lattice: Bending Properties and Failure Mechanisms

3D printing was triumphantly implemented for the fabrication of various architectural composites. The lightweight materials are developed for a variety of load situations across many sectors. The most popular method for accomplishing this is to use sandwiches with an architectural core. The cores are characterized by a diversity of structural forms, each of which has distinct mechanical characteristics. In this chapter, 3-point bending tests are undertaken with acoustic emission (AE) to investigate the mechanical behavior of 3D-printed short flax fiber-reinforced Polylactic acid. The specimens are built using the RAISE3D Pro2 Plus 3D printer. Mechanical experiments were then carried out to study the bending properties of the anti-trichirals structures. The analysis involved specimens with two distinct base cell radii, aiming to highlight the impact of the cylindrical node’s size on the sandwich’s bending strength. In addition, characterizations of the AE response are also examined. Non-destructive testing technology (NDT) by AE method is successfully employed to evaluate the 3D printed sandwich mechanical behavior and notably the bending deformation and damage. The results of cross-validation of cluster analysis, known (k-means) and principal component analysis (PCA) show that the AE settings, including duration, amplitude, rise time absolute energy and the number of counts to peak are associated with failure process of the specimens.