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This paper aims to investigate the effect of printing temperature on the thermal and the mechanical behaviour of polylactic acid (PLA)-polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) blend printed using fused deposition modelling (FDM).

Because of the use of an infra-red camera, thermal cycling during the laying down is quantified. In addition, X-ray micro-tomography is considered to reveal the microstructural arrangement within the three-dimensional printed material. Tensile loading conditions are used to derive Young’s modulus, tensile strength and fracture toughness, and relate these to the printing temperature. Finite element computation based on three-dimensional microstructure information is used to predict the role of defects on the tensile performance.

The results show a remarkable cohesive structure of PLA-PHA, particularly at 240°C. This cohesive structure is explained by the ability to ensure heat accumulation during laying down as evidenced by the nature of thermal cycling. The printing temperature is found to be a key factor for tuning the ductility of the printed PLA-PHA allowing full restoration of tensile strength at high printing temperature.

This study reports new results related to the thermo-mechanical behaviour of PLA-PHA that did not receive much attention in three-dimensional printing despite its potential as a candidate for pharmacological and medical applications. This study concludes by a wide range of possible printing temperatures for PLA-PHA and a remarkable low porosity generated by FDM.

Assembling items to achieve bigger parts seems to be the solution to counterbalance the dimension limits of 3D printing. This work aims to propose an approach to achieve optimal assembling.

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene polymer samples were printed using fused deposition modelling (FDM). These samples were assembled and the precise contribution of interfacial shearing and tension was measured using simple tensile experiments.

The results achieved show the correlation between the printing orientation and the assembling angle. It could be proved that rupture by an interfacial decohesion mechanism of glued parts can be avoided by simple adaptation of the assembling junction.

Design of large parts using FDM is no more a limitation if assembling configurations are adapted based on the knowledge gained about the interfacial phenomena occurring at the junction position.

The unbalanced contribution of shearing and tension at the interface defines new assembling profiles that exclude flat junctions.