Effects of a New Filling Technique on the Mechanical Properties of ABS Specimens Manufactured by Fused Deposition Modeling

No one can deny the widespread of 3D printing in many different fields. This paper aims to improve the mechanical properties of parts printed by fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) specimens are printed with custom printing parameters, these parameters give a tensile strength that is 86% of the injection molded ABS strength, and give one of the best results recorded for 100% infill printed ABS tensile specimens. Furthermore, a post filling technique has been studied, specimens are printed with inner voids and different densities using slicing software. Void shape is precisely selected to conform to the filling process. High-strength low-cost thermoset resin is injected through specimens to fill these voids. A tensile test has been performed after full curing of the resin and a morphology analysis is done. By this technique strength to printed weight ratio is improved by 151% and the cost is reduced by 51%.