Thermoforming behavior of 3D-printed PLA sheets

Fused deposition modeling is one of the most well-known additive manufacturing methods. It might be considered the easiest way to produce particle reinforced composites or unreinforced sheets which are biodegradable and used in the packaging industry as well as for custom products. In this study, polylactic acid (PLA) sheets were produced by 3D printing and thermoformed using a lab-scale thermoforming machine. This article aims to determine the deformation behavior of 3d printed PLA sheets during thermoforming. In addition to experimental work, finite element analysis was performed to investigate the prediction capabilities of Mooney-Rivlin and Ogden models for PLA sheets. In addition, the initial thickness of the sheet was optimized using FEA and a python script to obtain final uniform thickness distribution. Thanks to 3D printing’s capability for printing sheets of variable thickness, sheets of variable thickness were printed to verify the material models. As a result, based on the thickness distribution obtained from the experimental study, Mooney-Rivlin and Odgen material models were found to be inadequate for representing the actual deformation behavior of PLA sheets.