Carbon fibre-reinforced materials are becoming more and more popular in various fields of industries because of their lightweight and perfect mechanical properties. Additive manufacturing technologies can be used for the production of complex parts from various materials including composites. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is an excellent technology for the production of composite structures reinforced with short or continuous carbon fibre. In this study, modified FDM technology was used for the production of composites reinforced with continuous carbon fibre. The main aim of this study is to evaluate the shear strength of 3D-printed composite structures. The influence of printing layer height and line width on shear strength was analysed. Results showed that layer height has a significant influence on shear strength, while the influence of printing line width on shear strength is slightly smaller. Reduction of layer height from 0.4 mm to 0.3 mm allows increasing shear strength by about 40 percent. Moreover, the influence of the shear area and overlap length on shear force showed linear dependency, in which the shear area is increasing the shear force increasing proportionally. Finally, the results obtained can be used for the design and development of new 3D-printed composite structures.
Keywords: 3D printing; composites; continuous carbon fibre; interlayer adhesion.