melt processing of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (abs) on liquid deposition modeling (ldm) 3d printing and injection molding: process feasibility

The ldm process is one of the relatively new methods of additive manufacturing. in this method, polymer materials are mixed in the extruder chamber without the need for filament, subjected to heat and shear stress, and printed directly. this process can compete with traditional processes such as injection molding (im), which require a high initial cost. for this purpose, in this study, we investigated the processability of ldm processed commercial abs. to better understand the effect of process features, injection molded parts were fabricated and compared in terms of the tensile response. the results showed successful processing of the ldm process, however, revealing that the tensile strength and elastic modulus of injection molded samples were 29% and 5.56% higher than those fabricated via the ldm, respectively. the findings further exhibited that the injection molding led to greater toughness of the specimens than ldm. the results further demonstrated that the specimens exhibited the same elongation at break irrespective of the process used.