Thermo-Mechanical Properties of a Metal-filled Polymer Composite for Fused Deposition Modelling Applications

Abstract

Thermo-mechanical properties of a new metal-polymer composite consisting of an FDMgrade acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) containing 10% fine iron particles by volume have been investigated experimentally. Thermal properties tested include glass transition temperature using Dynamic Thermal Analysis (DTA) and Heat Capacity using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). The tensile strength and dynamic mechanical properties have also been tested. It has been shown that the addition of 10% iron powder improves thermal properties and storage modulus of the FDMgrade ABS resulting in more thermally stable prototypes producible on Stratasys FDM300 machine, while tensile strength drops significantly. The feedstock filaments of this composite have been successfully produced and used in the Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) rapid prototyping machine