Experimental and numerical investigations on the fatigue characteristics of FFF-printed acrylonitrile styrene acrylate parts

Abstract

Lightweight polymer products find application in various sectors, including the aerospace, automotive, architecture, domestic and electronics industries. The present investigation aims at analysing the fatigue behaviour of acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) samples fabricated by fused filament fabrication (FFF) process. Acrylonitrile styrene acrylate possesses mechanical, chemical and thermal properties that will be beneficial for functional applications. However, fatigue loading causes premature failure of the polymer components. Hence, the fatigue life of FFF-printed ASA specimens with different infill patterns and infill densities is experimentally examined in this work. Further, the fatigue life of 3D printed acrylonitrile styrene acrylate samples is numerically computed using the exponential function, hyperbolic function and Gatts equation. A minimum error of 0.18 per cent is obtained from the hyperbolic function. ASA samples with a line infill pattern and 100% infill density demonstrated higher fatigue life. The suggested methods can be utilised for predicting the fatigue life of 3D-printed polymer components. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.