Short fiber reinforced composites for fused deposition modeling

Addressed in this paper are critical material property issues related to the short fiber reinforced composite used in rapid prototyping and manufacturing (RP&M). Acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene (ABS) copolymer has been a popular choice of material used in fused deposition modeling (FDM), a commonly used RP&M process. However, conventional ABS polymers in the filamentary form for FDM are known to be of low strength and hardness. In order to overcome this deficiency, ABS was modified by incorporating several different property modifiers including the short glass fiber, plasticizer, and compatibilizer. Glass fibers were found to significantly improve the strength of an ABS filament at the expense of reduced flexibility and handleability. The latter two properties of glass fiber reinforced ABS filaments were improved by adding a small amount of plasticizer and compatibilizer. The resulting composite filament, prepared by extrusion, was found to work well with a FDM machine.