An investigation into whether post-print annealing improves carbon fiber (CCF) adhesion in FDM 3D prints using PETG, PETG-CF, PLA, and PLA-CF filaments. Testing 160 samples across tensile strength, stiffness, dimensional accuracy, and SEM microscopy, the research finds PETG benefits significantly from annealing while PLA shows little improvement. Surprisingly, PETG-CF performs worse than plain PETG, reinforcing earlier findings that chopped carbon fiber additives provide no meaningful benefit to thermoplastic FDM prints. Annealing causes Z-axis expansion and XY shrinkage, with CCF partially mitigating dimensional changes, but overall the results suggest annealing does not fix the fundamental adhesion problem between CCF and thermoplastics.
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