Dimensional Accuracy of 3D - Printed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene: Effect of Size, Layer Thickness, and Infill Density

Abstract

The adoption of Additive Manufacturing (AM) is continuously growing due to its capability to produce complex shapes which leads to the dependence of manufacturers on AM to replace conventional manufacturing processes. One important focus of research now is on the accuracy of 3D printed products produced via the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). These products have great potential to be applied to tooling and other rapid prototyping applications. The aim of this study is to assess the accuracy of 3D printed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) through manual measurements of dimensions. Several sets of samples with cubic shapes were printed and measured using a digital micrometer to evaluate the dimensional accuracy of the 3d-printed parts. A 22 full factorial design was employed to investigate the effects of infill density and layer thickness on the dimensional accuracy of ABS parts.