THE MECHANICAL AND FUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR OF NITINOL-REINFORCED PLA COMPOSITES

The current paper proposes the addition of nitinol at varying volume percentages (3, 10, and 15 vol%) to polylactic acid (PLA) matrix to study its effect on mechanical properties. In recent years, new types of PLA composites have been developed that incorporate nanomaterials such as CNTs, graphene, and other materials such as wood and kenaf fibers. Nitinol is an alloy with excellent shape memory and superelastic properties, which makes it highly desirable for use in biomedical and aerospace industries. In this work, the dissolution method was used to prepare PLA-Nitinol composite feedstock, which was extruded to fabricate composite filaments. The filaments were used in fused deposition modeling (FDM) printing to create cylindrical and cubic composite green samples. X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) were utilized to characterize the fabricated samples. Mechanical and functional behavior characterizations were carried out through quasi-static compression tests using a universal testing machine (UTM). The results show that composites of PLA and Nitinol exhibit improved mechanical properties compared to pure PLA, making them useful for a wide range of applications. Further research and development can result in new, highly functional materials with a broad range of potential applications. The current research paves the way for the development of printing metal-enriched filaments and get 100% metal parts using FDM technique.