Mechanical Properties, Energy Absorption, and Shape Memory Behavior of 3D Printed PLA-MXene Nanocomposites and Gyroid Lattices

This work investigates the influence of MXene content on the mechanical and functional response of PLA-MXene composites fabricated additively using fused deposition modeling. The mechanical, thermal, and microstructural properties of the fabricated samples are investigated considering dense and architected triply periodic minimal surfaces (TPMS) gyroid specimens. Overall, the addition of 0.25–0.5 wt% MXene is found to improve the stiffness, fracture strength, and energy absorption capabilities of the PLA. However, further increasing MXene content to 1 wt% becomes detrimental to the general performance of the composite. In terms of functional behavior, the PLA-MXene blends developed in this work are shown to display a shape memory effect, wherein deformed samples are shown to recover their shape when submerged in hot water. The reported results provide insights into the use of PLA-MXene in engineering applications, namely those involving impact shielding or energy absorption.