Additive manufacturing for the development of a sustainable aerospace industry

This thesis investigates the mechanical behaviour of 3D-printed materials produced through the material extrusion process. Both numerical and experimental approaches were employed to analyse the effect of printing parameters on the elastic and fracture properties of the printed components. A series of peridynamic (PD) models with increasing complexity were developed: starting from a single strand, then a sample with horizontal strands, and finally a sample with vertical strands. These models allowed the evaluation of the elastic modulus of 3D-printed samples as a function of printing parameters. The model was further improved to capture the non-linear response of the material, showing good agreement with experimental results. An extensive experimental campaign was then carried out on PLA and PLA–CF samples, including tensile tests and microscopic analyses. The tests confirmed the correlation between the printing parameters and the mechanical response and validated the numerical results. Finally, to reduce the computational cost of the simulations, a coupling strategy between Peridynamics and the Finite Strip Method (PD–FSM) was proposed and extended to three dimensions.