Additive manufacturing processes have a demonstrated capacity for flexible production of metal and polymer components. More recently, capabilities for three dimensional printing of continuous fiber reinforced composites were developed. As with printed metal and polymer materials, printed composites will exhibit a unique microstructure with morphological features and process artifacts that manifest on multiple length scales. The aim of this research was to investigate the microstructures of various printed continuous fiber composites and determine linkages to consequent mechanical properties such as stiffness and strength. Samples investigated in this study comprised unidirectional carbon fibers in nylon matrix, unidirectional Kevlar fibers in nylon matrix, and Kevlar fibers in nylon matrix aligned at ±45° directions. Tensile properties of the samples were evaluated along with comparison to expected properties. Fiber volume ratios were analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis. Scanning electron microscopy and optical microscopy were used to observe and characterize the hierarchical microstructure. Both strength and stiffness were approximately 30–40% weaker than traditionally produced composites, owing to features such as imperfect interfaces between printed layers, microvoids, incomplete fill density, and similar process artefacts. Future work will investigate mitigation of such effects through process modifications and post-processing to produce higher performance printed composites.

A type of orange carbon dots (O-CDs) synthesized via an ultrasonication route with citric acid and 1,2-phenylenediamine as precursors was embedded into sodium polyacrylate (SPA) as the ink for 3D printing. Characterizations of these spherical O-CDs revealed an ultra-small size (~2 nm) and excitation-independent, but solvent dependent, emission. The O-CDs were evenly distributed with low degree of aggregation in sodium polyacrylate (SPA), which was achieved due to the property that SPA can absorb water together with O-CDs. The 3D printed photoluminescent objective with the ink revealed a great potential for high yield application of these materials for additive manufacturing. This also represents the first time, bare CDs have been reported as a photoluminescent material in 3D printing, as well as the first time SPA has been reported as a material for 3D printing.

Prior studies on carbon‐filler based, conductive polymer composites have mainly investigated how conductive filler morphology and concentration can tailor a material's electrical conductivity and overlooks the effects of filler alignment due to the difficulty to control and quickly quantify the filler alignment. Here, direct ink write 3D printing's unique ability is utilized to control carbon fiber alignment with a single process parameter, velocity ratio, to instantaneously activate or deactivate the electrical network in composites. Maximum electrical conductivity is achieved by randomly aligning carbon fibers that enhances the chance of direct fiber‐to‐fiber contact and, thus, activating the electrical network. However, aligning the fibers by increasing the velocity ratio disrupts the electrical network by minimizing fiber‐to‐fiber contact that resulted in a drastic decrease in electrical conductivity by as much as five orders of magnitude in both short and long carbon fiber composites. With this study, this study demonstrates that electrically conductive or insulative composites can be fabricated sequentially with a single ink. This novel ability to instantaneously control the electrical conductivity of carbon fiber reinforced composites allow to directly embed conductive pathways into designs to 3D print multifunctional composites that are capable of localized heating and self‐sensing.