Mechanical and Rheological Investigations of Bakelite Reinforced ABS

Abstract

This book article highlights the fabrication process and various characteristics of composite filament prepared for 3D printing applications by mechanical blending of secondary (2°) recycled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as matrix reinforced with bakelite powder (BP). BP being one of the thermosetting polymers possesses high hardness, strength as well as good thermal stability and hence used as reinforcement for enhancing the properties of base matrix. The filaments were prepared by varying twin screw extrusion (TSE) process parameters namely extrusion load, temperature and speed/rpm in order to study the mechanical and rheological properties of the composite filaments. The results highlighted that reinforcement of BP improves the melt flow index (MFI) of composite filament (being a rheological property) as compared to 2° recycled ABS. However, as the percentage of reinforcement increases, the MFI of the composite filaments start decreasing. Further, the various mechanical properties of composite filaments reinforced with 10% by weight of BP has been explored and it has been investigated that 10 kg load, 225°C extrusion temperature and 70 rpm speed gives optimum results for the break strength (27.67 MPa) and percentage break elongation (5.16%) when both the responses were considered simultaneously.