Effect of Process Parameters on Shrinkage of Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene Parts Fabricated by 3D Printing Process

Abstract

3D Printing is one of the preferred rapid manufacturing techniques where parts are built by fusion of layers. For a functional prototype, the part should have high accuracy especially for aerospace and rapid tooling applications. Shrinkage is one of the major factors, which influence the accuracy of the 3D Printing parts. The amount of shrinkage encountered is found to be governed by the process parameters during processing and the properties of the build materials. In the present work, the relationship between shrinkage and the process parameters namely layer thickness, head speed and length of the part has been investigated for X direction laying using Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS ) as the build material. Response surface methodology has been used to plan the experiments. A model has been developed for estimating the shrinkage of the parts. Length of the part and layer thickness was found to be the most important parameters effecting shrinkage of the parts. Further, it has been found that shrinkage tends to increase with increase in length of the part and decreases with increase in layer thickness and head speed.