Strengthening of plasma treated 3D printed ABS through epoxy infiltration

Abstract

3D printed fused deposition modeling (FDM) material parts have distinct anisotropic mechanical properties based upon their as-built print orientation. The strength of material printed perpendicular to the deposition layers can be as low as 50% of values for injection molded parts due to less than optimum interlayer fusion, limiting their use for critical applications. The focus of this work is to present a novel way of utilizing design freedoms available in FDM to improve strength in weak orientations. Vertically processed FDM ABS parts were manufactured with cavities printed perpendicular to the interlayer direction and were subsequently plasma surface treated, filled with an epoxy resin, and mechanically tested. Plasma treatment was shown to beneficially modify the surface chemistry, which resulted in a 50% improvement in shear strength over untreated specimens. Samples that underwent plasma treatment and epoxy infiltration demonstrated a 130% increase in flexural strength over that of as-printed FDM material. The failure strain was also shown to increase by two-fold. The addition of milled carbon fiber (MCF) filler within the epoxy infiltrate was also evaluated and was shown to increase the flexural modulus by as much as 76% at 10 wt% loading levels, though negligible increases in strength were observed.

Fused Filament Fabrication of Polymers and Continuous Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites: Advances in Structure Optimization and Health Monitoring

“…PDA was also successfully applied in TP reinforced with carbon fiber based on a self-assembly approach to treat carbon fibers [ 39 ]. In the case of neat 3D printed TP, epoxy adhesive was used to improve the flexural strength of the material [ 40 ]. However, a specific process has been developed to have an effective influence of the epoxy.…”

Three Dimensional Printing of Multiscale Carbon Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites Containing Graphene or Carbon Nanotubes

“…For example, carbon-based particles render polymeric composites advantageous, since their introduction in polymers results in a stiffness increase, weight reduction, and higher corrosion resistance [11]. For instance, Zaldivar et al [12] showed that the infiltration into 3D-printed acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) of epoxy resin containing 10 wt.% of milled carbon fibers increased the flexural modulus by 76% with respect to the neat material. Similarly, another study showed that the use of 1.5 wt.% of ZrB2 microparticle reinforcements in the ABS matrix resulted in an increase of strength and strain at break of about 13% and 82%, respectively [13].…”

Effect of Material and Process Specific Factors on the Strength of Printed Parts in Fused Filament Fabrication: A Review of Recent Developments

“…It is important to mention that there are other types of in-process and post-printing processes performed on the FFF materials. For example, humidity exposure (water absorption) [73,74], chemical treatment (acetone, ethyl acetate, tetrahydrofuran, dichloromethane, chloroform) [75,76,77,78], plasma treatment and epoxy infiltration [79], aluminium coating, metal coating [80,81], physical vapor deposition (PVD) [82], etc. However, apart from humidity [74], these processing techniques are mostly applied for decreasing the surface roughness or to achieve higher dimensional accuracy.…”