Enhancement of fracture toughness under mixed mode loading of ABS specimens produced by 3D printing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is the application and the improvement of a previous method based on an acrylonitrile butadiene styrene thread deposition in fused deposition modeling. To gain up to 20 per cent of mechanical strength in comparison with a classical deposition, this method suggests a smart threads deposition in the principal stresses direction. Design/methodology/approach In this work, the authors use single edge notched bend specimens with mixed mode I+II loading cases to study the influence of the thread deposition on the fracture toughness of the specimens. For this purpose, finite elements simulations have been used to evaluate the fracture toughness of the specimens through the calculation of the J integral. The study presents a method to compare the optimized and classical specimens and also to gather data and suggest a numerical model for this optimized deposition. For this reason, tensile tests are carried out to characterize the mechanical behavior of the printed samples with respect to the raster angle. Extra attention has been paid to 45 per cent samples behavior that shows a pronounced plasticity before the fracture. This interprets partially the improvement in the fracture behavior of the single edge notched bend samples. Findings The results show an enhancement through this optimization which leads to an increase of the maximal force in fracture up to 20 per cent and the fracture toughness of the specimens with stress intensity factors KI and KII increases about 30 per cent. Originality/value Additive manufacturing is increasingly gaining importance not only in prototyping but also in industrial production. For this reason, the characterization and the optimization of these technologies and their materials are fundamental. An adaptive deposition through a smart material based on specific mechanical behaviors would be an advance.