3D Printed Hierarchical Honeycombs with Carbon Fiber and Carbon Nanotube Reinforced Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene

Michel Theodor Mansour,Dimitrios Tzetzis,Konstantinos Tsongas

doi:10.3390/jcs5020062

Abstract

The mechanical properties of Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D printed specimens of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), ABS reinforced with carbon fibers (ABS/CFs) and ABS reinforced with carbon nanotubes (ABS/CNTs) are investigated in this paper using various experimental tests. In particular, the mechanical performance of the fabricated specimens was determined by conducting compression and cyclic compression testing, as well as nanoindentation tests. In addition, the design and the manufacturing of hierarchical honeycomb structures are presented using the materials under study. The 3D printed honeycomb structures were examined by uniaxial compressive tests to review the mechanical behavior of such cellular structures. The compressive performance of the hierarchical honeycomb structures was also evaluated with finite element analysis (FEA) in order to extract the stress-strain response of these structures. The results revealed that the 2nd order hierarchy displayed increased stiffness and strength as compared with the 0th and the 1st hierarchies. Furthermore, the addition of carbon fibers in the ABS matrix improved the stiffness, the strength and the hardness of the FFF printed specimens as well as the compression performance of the honeycomb structures.

Highlights

Nowadays, additive manufacturing (AM)/3D printing processes are gathering great momentum throughout the world
The carbon fiber filled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament displayed an enhancement in tensile modulus and tensile strength, which was equal to 700% and 115%, respectively, while they showed that the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) process induced high fiber alignment along the direction of the print path
The objective of the present study was to investigate the mechanical properties of ABS filaments reinforced with carbon fibers (ABS/CFs) and carbon nanotubes (ABS/CNTs), as well as to design and fabricate hierarchical honeycomb structures using such ABS composite filaments

Summary

Introduction

Additive manufacturing (AM)/3D printing processes are gathering great momentum throughout the world. Composite and nanocomposite filaments have been introduced recently in 3D printing procedures, and pioneer materials are manufactured reinforced with additives with exceptional mechanical properties [6,7]. The composite samples showed 70.69 MPa of tensile strength while the stiffness was 8.91 GPa, as compared to 29.31 MPa and 2.05 GPa from unfilled ABS tensile samples They introduced the fact that the incorporation of carbon fibers in the base polymer reduced the deformation of the printed ABS parts. Yang et al [12] fabricated composite samples using ABS reinforced with 10 wt% continuous carbon fiber (CCF) through the 3D printing method These samples improved their flexural strength and tensile strength to 127 MPa and 147 MPa, respectively, in comparison with unfilled ABS samples. The outcomes disclosed that the addition of glass fibers in the polymer matrix could significantly enhance the tensile strength and surface rigidity of the ABS filament

Objectives

Methods

Results