Design of Composites for Additive Manufacturing: Tailoring of Individual Lamina

The research and development of polymer composite materials for additive manufacturing (AM) is critical for potential applications in the aerospace, automotive, and construction industries. The properties of the additive manufactured composite component are highly dependent on factors such as slicing thickness, infill pattern, infill direction, infill density, and fiber volume fraction. An additive manufactured composite part fabricated with different infill directions can have the same density but an immense effect on the resulting mechanical response of the components. This study is focused on exploring the possibility of developing composite material parts with different material layering pattern within each lamina to obtain highly tailored mechanical properties that cannot be obtained in traditional laminated composites. The results show that additive manufacturing provides a versatile method for developing composites that cannot be developed by the traditional methods by tailoring the properties of individual lamina in multiple directions.