Investigation into impact properties of adhesively bonded 3D printed polymers

Abstract

Nowadays, 3D printing is used to produce various engineering parts thanks to improved mechanical properties and surface roughness. Despite its many superior features, the limitation of 3D printing is the size of the parts that can be produced. The use of 3D printing to fabricate smaller sub-parts and then adhesively bond them to each other is a potential solution to this problem. This method is used in many industries to bond various metal and plastic materials. In this study, ASTM D 950-3 standard test specimens were additively manufactured using polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) polymers subsequently bonded with cyanoac-rylate/epoxy mixture hybrid adhesive (133 g/m(2)). The layer thickness (0.1 mm-0.5 mm) and printing direction (edgewise, flatwise) effect of on the impact strength (kJ/m(2)) of the resulting joints was investigated by Izod impact tests (maximum potential energy of 15 J). As a result of the tests, it was found that the impact strength of the connections of the ABS parts was higher than that of the joints of the PLA parts. It has been concluded that ABS parts with 0.3 mm layer thickness have the highest impact strength. These results may help achieve higher impact strength when adhesively bonding parts fabricated by 3D printing for engineering applications.