Session: 02-01-03: 7th Annual Conference-Wide Symposium on Additive Manufacturing: Polymers I

Paper Number: 95109

95109 - Impact of Processing Parameters in Mechanical Properties of the Additively Manufactured Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate 

In recent years, the rise of additive manufacturing has led the usage of consumer-level 3D printers to exceed the industrial-grade machines, both in numbers and features. The relatively low initial capital cost of materials and machines, easy access to the open-source design software, freedom in design thinking allowed a number of consumers to adopt small-scale desktop 3D printers for prototyping and end-use applications in small business, research, education, rapid tooling, and many other technical and non-technical areas. Commercial grade 3D printers are well suited for industrial tooling and replacement part application due to known and accessible materials data. However, many consumer-level 3D printing materials have limited or no access to material data, including mechanical properties. This lack of strength properties often creates a barrier to the design and manufacturing of end-use application parts.

In this study, a relatively new and low-cost commodity-type 3D printing filament material, acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA), was used as a feedstock to a commercially available, desktop fused filament fabrication 3D printer. The aim was to correlate the mechanical properties of the 3D printed specimen to the raster orientation and extrusion temperature. Although ASA bears multiple similarities to ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene), its superior UV-resistant properties facilitate a wider adoption in various indoor and outdoor industrial applications.

Following ASTM D 638 standard, ASA specimens were 3D printed at raster orientation angles of 0°/90°, 30°/60°, and +45°/-45° at three different temperatures, namely: 230°C, 250°C, and 270°C. The print bed temperature was set at 100°. Each of the specimens was printed with an infill density of 100 %.  The fabricated specimens were then tensile tested and relevant mechanical properties characterized, including the modulus of elasticity, ultimate tensile stress (UTS), tensile strain at failure. Overall, ASA material showed promising strength properties compared to the ABS material. In addition, the 0°/90° raster orientation was observed to yield the highest mechanical properties, with an average UTS of 32 MPa. The +45°/-45° and 30°/60° specimens showed lower properties with an average UTS of 31 and 29 MPa, respectively. The results also indicated a strong relationship between the print orientations and the extrusion temperatures. Furthermore, fractured surfaces of the tested specimens were mainly a brittle and craze type of failure on the bulk of the bead. A comparative analysis was performed of the generated results of ASA material with ABS material. These results may not only aid consumer-level manufacturing endeavors, but also support the industrial-scale manufacturing as well as the numerical modeling community to accurately predict appropriate manufacturing conditions and materials performance.1

Presenting Author: Kazi Md Masum Billah University of Houston - Clear Lake

Presenting Author Biography: Dr. Billah received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2017 and 2021 respectively. In 2013, he received his B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the Khulna University of Engineering &amp; Technology, Bangladesh.<br/><br/>Dr. Billah&#39;s teaching and research interests are encompassed through the area of advanced manufacturing technologies—more specifically, additive manufacturing/3D printing. He has experience as an engineering educator and advanced manufacturing researcher in several academic and research institutions, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, W. M. Keck Center for 3D Innovation, University of Texas at El Paso, and World University of Bangladesh.

Authors:

Kazi Md Masum Billah University of Houston - Clear Lake
Md Rashedul Sarker University of Indianapolis
Mario Barron Gonzalez University of Houston - Clear Lake
Jose Anibal Ramirez University of Houston - Clear Lake
Youssef K. Hamidi University of Houston - Clear Lake