Pasita Pibulchinda, Purdue AAE doctoral student

Purdue AAE doctoral student Pasita Pibulchinda won an Outstanding Technical Paper award at the 2022 Composites and Advanced Material Exposition (CAMX). She presented her work in person at the conference in Anaheim, California, in October 2022.

Pibulchinda presented the work she completed for her PhD preliminary exam, which focused on predicting the air gap between beads of material in an additive manufacturing system. It’s important to be able to predict these gaps and eliminate them, Pibulchinda says, because their existence reduces the strength of a 3D-printed part. These air gaps reduce the amount of contact between multiple beads and create stress points that can increase the chances of component failure.

“I developed a framework that uses an anisotropic viscous flow model (developed by former Dr. Pipes’s student) to simulate the deposition flow in the additive manufacturing system. By simulating the deposition flow of two consequence bead printed next to each other, we can predict the inter-bead void. My work also used the framework to study the inter-bead void as a result of different print parameters such as the bead size, print speed and the space between the two beads.”

“Some of the print condition results in a presence of inter-bead void, some of the print condition results in no inter-bead void. Therefore, it is important to choose the 3D printer parameters wisely. This study was conducted for the Composites Additive Manufacturing Research Instrument (CAMRI) printer which is the smaller fiber-reinforced polymer composites printer that was developed at Purdue for research purposes. However, this framework can be easily translated to the LSAM system as the physics phenomena is the same.”

These two composite parts manufactured at the CMSC show how different print settings can produce voids, weakening the part.

The award recognizes work that CAMX says “will impact the next generation of composites innovation [and] covers critical areas that are important to the composites and advanced materials industry.” Pibulchinda conducted this research at Purdue’s Composites Manufacturing and Simulation Center (CMSC), advised by R. Byron Pipes, executive director of the CMSC and John L. Bray Distinguished Professor of Engineering. The second phase of her composites research is currently ongoing; it focuses on how different printing parameters affect the fracture properties of the finished part.

“I am glad that the industry sees the potential of my research and believe that my work will make an impact on the composites industry. It gives me more motivation to work hard and do my research,” Pibulchinda says. “At the end of my study, I aim to develop a simulation framework/tool that will be useful for the fiber-reinforced composites additive manufacturing community.

Pibulchinda’s paper is titled, “Influence of Process Conditions on The Extrudate and Inter-Bead Voids in Extrusion Deposition Additive Manufacturing.”