Synthesis and Testing of FGM made of ABS Plastic Material

Functionally graded materials (FGMs) is a member of advanced materials in which the constituents or structure are gradually changed over a volume and the spatial position of the structure determines the material properties. Polymer composites fail under extreme working conditions mainly through delamination. An example would be a laminated composite made of two distinctive metals having different thermal expansion coefficient. To overcome these problems, FGMs are employed. The present work is aimed at synthesizing an FGM which has varying density along its width using additive manufacturing technology. After manufacturing the FGM, the same is then observed for its microstructure and tested for tensile, bending and compressive loads. A comparison is drawn with Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) material having same density throughout. It is observed from the results that, there is a 38.9% reduction in weight of the material in respect of 13.875% reduction in the tensile strength, 25.6% with respect to bending and about 31.545% reduction in strength with respect to compression loading condition. Therefore, in applications where weight considerations are critical, the synthesized FGM can be a good substitute. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.