The recent emergence and proliferation of low-cost digital manufacturing techniques, for example fused deposition modeling (FDM), bears the new and very promising potential of innovating small local industries Latin America. FDM provides the capability of locally defining, designing and producing manifold objects for a wide range of applications, and at affordable costs. It allows societies to produce locally, to self-supply specific local demands. This is especially important for developing societies, where a vast majority of technological goods is currently being imported. For these countries, new production techniques such as FDM foster local production and reduce the present strong dependence on imports. An important prerequisite for such development is the local availability of adequate FDM equipment (including spares) and, importantly, both affordable and sustainable FDM material solutions. We focus on the development of new composites for FDM applications, in view of producing highly functional objects with lowest possible environmental impact. Our approach consists in reinforcing biodegradable polymers, such as PLA (polylactic acid) with nano cellulose and high-strength organic fiber fragments. We present a two step, FDM-procedure for the production of composite test samples. In a first step organic material is deposited in FDM-prefabricated containment structures which are then sealed. The second step consits in producing 3D objects with FDM, using the sealed material material containment structures. We highlight the production process for organic composite test samples and present results obtained from the experimental determination of their mechanical and morphological properties. Specific examples of functional objects, fabricated with such new composites, shall also be included.

New organic composites for FDM applications

249th National Meeting (2015)

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