Post-processing of PLA parts after additive manufacturing by FDM technology

At present, Additive Manufacturing (AM) with post-processing tasks combination is an interesting as well as a necessary procedure in many industrial areas that work with polymeric components. However, there are not enough studies related to finishing treatments on AM parts. This contribution analyses different post-treatments in order to achieve improvements in the physical aspect, superficial and mechanical properties of specimens manufactured by Fused Deposition Modelling technology (FDM). The material used in this case is Poly(lactic acid) (PLA) because it is one of the most used materials in this type of technology and at the same time, it is one of the least studied. Immersions in different organic solvents is the proposal, varying concentration and dipping time. The results are evaluated obtaining very different effects for each solvent. In all cases, several variations are observed in the physical aspect and in the mechanical properties obtained, in particular, tensile strength.