Material Characterization of Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) ABS by Designed Experiments

Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology has been advanced to fabricate initial prototypes from various materials. Stratasys’ Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the typical RP processes that provide functional prototypes of ABS plastic. In order to predict the behavior of final ABS parts, it is critical to understand the material properties of the raw FDM process material, and the effect that FDM build parameters have on composite material properties. In this paper, we seek t the properties of ABS parts fabricated by the FDM 1650. Using the Design of Experiment (DOE) approach, the process parameters of FDM, such as raster orientation, air gap, bead width, color, and model temperature were examined. Tensile strengths of crisscross specimens, [45 °/-45°], cross specimens, [0 °/90°], and directionally fabricated tensile specimens ([0°] and [90 °]) were measured and compared with the injection molded FDMABS P400 material. For the FDM parts made with a –0.003” air gap, the typical tensile strength ranged between 65 percent and 72 percent of the strength of injection molded ABS P400. From the experiment s, several build rules for designing FDM parts were obtained.