Predicting Material Properties of Additively Manufactured Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene via a Multiscale Analysis Process

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) has inherent mechanical strength inconsistencies when the build orientation changes. To address this issue, theoretical models, including analytical and numerical models, can be developed to predict the material properties of additively manufactured materials. This study develops a systematic finite element (FE)-based multiscale numerical model and simulation process for the polymer acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). ABS samples are fabricated using fused deposition modelling (FDM) to determine the material properties and mechanical behaviours. For macroscale analysis, good agreement between the numerical and experimental tensile strength of transverse samples proved that the FE model is applicable for applying a reverse engineering method in simulating the uniaxial tension of samples. The FE modelling method shows its capability to consider infill density effects. For mesoscale analysis, two methods are developed. The first method is a representative volume element (RVE)-based numerical model for all longitudinal samples. The second method is analytical and based on the rule of mixtures (ROM). Modified rule of mixtures (MROM) models are also developed, which demonstrate an improvement compared to the original ROM models. The research outcomes of this study can facilitate the AM process of parts in various engineering fields.

A Comparative Evaluation of the Effects of Manufacturing Parameters on Mechanical Properties of Additively Manufactured PA and CF-Reinforced PA Materials

“…Currently, the FDM technique is mostly used for production with polymer material, although metal printing is also possible. The final mechanical properties of the polymer part produced with FDM are significantly affected by the printing parameters, as well as depending on the base polymer used [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ].…”

Evaluation on Material Anisotropy of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene Printed via Fused Deposition Modelling

“…To capture the anisotropic behaviours of the 3D-printed ABS materials, a mesoscale analysis process was developed, and SEM images of these materials were used to create representative volume elements (RVEs) and finite-element models in the authors' previous work focusing on numerical modelling [24]. With the current capture of SEM images and softwares' limitation to construct models at various infill percentages, only one machine parameter of infill percentage was modelled and reported for ABS polymeric parts in this work.…”

“…where X P , X I are the tensile strengths in the perimeter and infill regions, respectively. The volume fraction V P 0 ≤ V p ≤ 1 of the perimeter region was defined based on the images obtained from a standard SEM analysis [22,24].…”

“…Manufacturing plastic parts using AM, in particular, the FDM process, is drawing a lot of attention recently but despite the benefits they have to offer, some challenges are still preventing the manufacturers from transitioning from conventional methods such as injection moulding and hot pressing to AM methods [24]. The most critical issue when dealing with parts printed by the FDM method is called material anisotropy.…”

“…The samples are characterised using microstructural analysis including SEM, XRD, TGA, DSC, micro-CT, etc. Although ROM is commonly used for composites that contain at least two materials with different properties, it was not used to extract material properties of 3D-printed polymeric structures except for the authors' work [24]. From the SEM images, the internal structure of the testing sample is found to comprise two different regions classified by their difference in the alignment of deposited materials.…”