MECHANICAL PROPERTIES VARIATION DUE TO BUILDING ORIENTATION OF ABS RESIN MATERIAL

Abstract

Considering that additive manufacturing technology, has evolved significantly over the past few decades, understanding of materials mechanical properties became important part of researches with the goal of further improvement of production Among the seven different AM technologies, in this research is used digital light processing (DLP) 3D printing process with LCD projector. The thermoplastic polymer material acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is a widely used material for 3D plastics printing, and in this study, it is chosen in the resin form. So far, this type of material has not been sufficiently studied, and the aim of this study was to determine the mechanical properties for two different specimens’ building orientations (45° and 90°). Specimen’s geometry is chosen according to the respective standards for mechanical testing’s. Because of the difficulties and warping which occur when printing the flat, thin and long specimens, orientation ‘on edge’, i.e., 90° is chosen, as well as the 45° orientation, for comparison. Tensile, three point bending and compression mechanical tests were performed and Matlab is used to create stress-strain curves. Additionally, microscopy is performed for more comprehensive insight of the behaviour of the ABS resin printed via DLP-LCD technology. Comparison of mechanical properties for two orientations leads to the overview of printing parameters which result in better mechanical properties regard to specific application. Better behaviour and compression mechanical properties are noticed in 90° orientation printed ABS resin specimens, compared to 45° ones, while flexure behaviour of ABS is the same regardless to building orientation.