Abstract
This work examines the physical and mechanical properties of composite filaments derived from acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) and polylactic acid (PLA) using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and tensile testing. Composites made up of 0% to 100% in 25% intervals of ABS and PLA were prepared through a filament extrusion process. The composites were characterized using TGA and DSC with unprocessed ABS and PLA for comparison. To model the additive manufacturing and recycling process, each sample was exposed to heating and cooling cycles during DSC measurements. The 25% ABS and 75% PLA composite samples were determined to have the highest crystalline content based on the highest melting temperature. DSC data also indicated that the crystallinity of the materials degraded as glass transition and melting temperatures shifted higher with each repeated heating and cooling cycle. A tensile testing of the composite filaments was performed using a universal testing machine. The samples were pulled with tabs constructed from duct tape. From this analysis, the best-performing mixture was 50% ABS and 50% PLA. This data was compared against the DSC data to correlate the strength of the composites to the crystalline region after several recycling iterations.
