Investigating Wear Behaviour of Multiple Layer Copper Coating on 3D-Printed Biodegradable PLA Composite

Abstract

This study investigated the wear behaviour of multilayer copper coatings applied to fused deposition modelling-based three-dimensional printed polylactic acid (PLA) specimens. Cylindrical PLA samples with a diameter of 12 mm and a length of 32 mm were fabricated using a 0.4 mm nozzle, with a layer height of 0.15 mm, 100% infill density, a print speed of 40 mm/s, a bed temperature of 60°C and a nozzle temperature of 190°C. Copper coating was deposited on the printed PLA specimens through electroplating using a copper sulphate solution with sulphuric acid under a direct current supply of 10 V and 1.5 A. Single-, double- and triple-copper-coated specimens were prepared, with each coating layer described as 0.5 mm thick. Tribological testing was conducted under dry sliding conditions using a Tribometer TR 20 Micro against an EN 8 roller with a diameter of 50 mm and a hardness of 62 HRC. The tests were performed at a load of 25 N, a rotational speed of 300 rpm and a duration of 600 s. Wear response was evaluated using wear displacement and weight loss observations. The results indicated that coating-layer thickness influenced the wear behaviour of copper-coated PLA specimens. The wear curves showed differences in the initial transition and subsequent wear response among the single-, double- and triple-coated samples. The study suggests that multilayer copper coating may affect the tribological performance of 3D-printed PLA components under dry sliding conditions.