The Thermal and Mechanical Behaviour of Wood-PLA Composites Processed by Additive Manufacturing for Building Insulation

Anis Bahar (1, 2, 3) , Ameur Hamami (1) , Ferhat Benmahiddine (4, 1) , Sofiane Belhabib (5) , Rafik Belarbi (1, 6, 7) , Sofiane Guessasma (3)

1 LaSIE - Laboratoire des Sciences de l'Ingénieur pour l'Environnement - UMR 7356
2 GEPEA - Laboratoire de génie des procédés - environnement - agroalimentaire
3 BIA - Unité de recherche sur les Biopolymères, Interactions Assemblages
4 Builders École d'ingénieurs
5 GEPEA-OSE - Optimisation - Système - Energie
6 UdeS - Faculté de génie [Sherbrooke]
7 CUD - Canadian University of Dubai

This study was aimed at considering the potential of wood-based composites processed using additive manufacturing as insulators in the building sector. A polylactic acid blend with 30% wood particles was used as a feedstock material in fused filament technology. Its thermal and mechanical properties were determined for various processing conditions, including printing temperature and infill rate. The results showed a minor contraction in its tensile performance as a result of the printing process. The printing temperature had a negligible effect on its stiffness and a limited influence on the other engineering constants, such as the tensile strength and ultimate stress. The thermal properties of printed structures have been found to significantly depend on the infill rate. Although the tested 3D printed wood-PLA material exhibited good thermal properties, which were tuneable using the printing conditions, its performance was still 38% to 57% lower compared to insulators such as the glass wool of the synthetic foams used in the building sector.

Mots clés: wood-PLA filament; fused filament fabrication; thermal properties; tensile performance; microstructure

Domaines: Matériaux composites et construction; Mécanique des matériaux [physics.class-ph]

Anis Bahar, Ameur Hamami, Ferhat Benmahiddine, Sofiane Belhabib, Rafik Belarbi, et al.. The Thermal and Mechanical Behaviour of Wood-PLA Composites Processed by Additive Manufacturing for Building Insulation. Polymers, 2023, 15 (14), pp.3056. ⟨10.3390/polym15143056⟩. ⟨hal-04162859⟩