Structural and Frictional Performance of Fused Deposition Modelled Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (P430) with a View to Use as Rapid Tooling Material in Sheet Metal Forming

Using additive layer manufacturing techniques, such as Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), it is possible to produce complex geometry relatively quickly and cheaply. For this reason these processes offer intriguing possibilities for tooling in metal forming processes. A common material utilised in the FDM process is Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS). A series of compression and tensile tests were carried out on FDM ABS test specimens built in a range of orientations. The tensile tests were carried out until fracture and the specimen cross-sections analysed to investigate the cause of failure. In uniaxial tension the vertical build direction was found to be the weakest, failing in a brittle fashion. The FDM material elastic modulus and Poisson’s ratio were found to be isotropic in nature within experimental scatter. The ‘yield’ strength in compression was found to be higher than that observed for equivalent tensile orientations. Following a series of strip pull friction tests using commercially pure titanium as the blank material, it was found that without the utilisation of an interfacial lubricant a favourable frictional performance was achievable on ABS tool surfaces. Due to tool wear however, the frictional performance of these tool pieces deteriorated with increasing sliding distance.