Interfacial bonding strength of short carbon fiber/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene composites fabricated by fused deposition modeling

This work aims to characterize the interfacial bonding strength between printed wires of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS), carbon nanotube reinforced ABS (CNTABS) and short carbon fiber reinforced ABS (CFABS) specimens fabricated by fused deposition modeling. The in-plane tensile shear test and double notch shear test methods using ±45° specimens were used. The in-plane tensile shear strength of CFABS specimen is close to that of CNTABS specimen, and both of them are greater than that of ABS specimen. Double notch shear strengths are smaller than in-plane tensile shear strength of CFABS specimens at all three printing speeds studied. Also, the shear strengths of CFABS specimens decrease with increasing printing speed and layer thickness. X-ray micro-computed tomography examination concluded that CFABS specimens have the largest porosity compared with ABS and CNTABS specimens at corresponding raster orientation, especially for ±45° specimens. Matrix fracture and fiber pull-out, as well as fiber-matrix interfacial debonding are the dominating failure modes of CFABS specimen.