Tensile, Creep, and Fatigue Behaviors of 3D-Printed Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene

Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) is a widely used thermoplastics in 3D printing. However, there is a lack of thorough investigation of the mechanical properties of 3D-printed ABS components, including orientation-dependent tensile strength and creep fatigue properties. In this work, a systematic characterization is conducted on the mechanical properties of 3D-printed ABS components. Specifically, the effect of printing orientation on the tensile and creep properties is investigated. The results show that, in tensile tests, the 0° printing orientation has the highest Young’s modulus of 1.81 GPa, and ultimate strength of 224 MPa. In the creep test, the 90° printing orientation has the lowest k value of 0.2 in the plastics creep model, suggesting 90° is the most creep resistant direction. In the fatigue test, the average cycle number under load of 30 N is 3796 cycles. The average cycle number decreases to 128 cycles when the load is 60 N. Using the Paris law, with an estimated crack size of 0.75 mm, and stress intensity factor is varied from 352 to 700 $$N\sqrt m$$ , the derived fatigue crack growth rate is 0.0341 mm/cycle. This study provides important mechanical property data that is useful for applying 3D-printed ABS in engineering applications.