Experimental investigation and optimization of the fused deposition modelled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene

Abstract

The basic efforts of this investigation are focused on integrated experimental-black box modelling and optimization framework to study the viscoelastic and tensile properties of FDM processed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). The effect of selected process parameters (including nozzle temperature, layer height, raster orientation and deposition speed) as well as their interaction effects are studied. Specifically, in the first step, a Taguchi orthogonal array was employed to design the experiments with a minimal number of runs, while considering different working conditions (temperatures) for the final prints. The Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) as well as tensile testing were carried out to investigate the significance of the process parameters, measured by statistical hypothesis testing methods. Due to the observed complex nature of the interacting effects of the FDM parameters, a series of artificial neural networks were developed and employed to predict the properties of the 3D printed samples, and consequently the process parameters were. The percent contribution and ranking of the process parameters were identified and linked to the underlying meso/micro level mechanisms, through visual inspections of the samples.