Tensile and fatigue behavior of layered acrylonitrile butadiene styrene

Purpose - This paper aims to define the effect of specimen mesostructure on the monotonic tensile behavior and tensile-fatigue life of layered acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) components fabricated by fused deposition modeling (FDM). Design/methodology/approach - Tensile tests were performed on FDM dogbone specimens with four different raster orientations according to ASTM standard D638-03. Resulting ultimate tensile stresses (UTS) for each raster orientation were used to compute the maximum stress for fatigue testing, i.e. 90, 75, 60 and 50 or 45 per cent nominal values of the UTS. Multiple specimens were subjected to tension - tension fatigue cycling with stress ratio of R = 0.10 in accordance with ASTM standard D7791-12. Findings - Both tensile strength and fatigue performance exhibited anisotropic behavior. The longitudinal (0 degrees) and default (+45/-45 degrees) raster orientations performed significantly better than the diagonal (45 degrees) or transverse (90 degrees) orientations in regards to fatigue life, as displayed in the resulting Wohler curves. Practical implications - Raster orientation has a significant effect on the fatigue performance of FDM ABS components. Aligning FDM fibers along the axis of the applied stress provides improved fatigue life. If the direction of applied stresses is not expected to be constant in given application, the default raster orientation is recommended. Originality/value - This project provides knowledge to the limited work published on the fatigue performance of FDM ABS components. It provides S-N fatigue life results that can serve as a foundation for future work, combining experimental investigations with theoretical principles and the statistical analysis of data.