Experimental analysis of metal/plastic composites made by a new hybrid method

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key elements of a new hybrid process to produce high quality metal/plastic composites. The process is a combination of Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), vacuum forming and CNC machining. The research aims to provide details of the proposed hybrid process, equipment used, and the experimental results of the composites produced. The research has been separated into three study areas. In the first, the hybrid process has been defined as a whole whereas the second area deals with the breakdown of steps to produce the metal/plastic composites. The third area explains the varied materials used for the production and testing of the composites. Composites have been made by joining copper (99.99% pure) mesh with ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). Strain measurement has been carried out on Cu/ABS sample to analyse the effect of metal mesh and to verify the effectiveness of the hybrid process. The resulting composites (Cu/ABS) have also been subjected to tensile loading with different layers of metal mesh, followed by microstructural analysis and comparative studies to serve as a proof of the methodology. The results show that the proposed hybrid process is very effective in producing metal/plastic composites with lower strain values compared to the parent plastic indicating a lower level of deformation due to interlocking of the metal and plastic layers. This effect has been reinforced by the tensile testing where the composites showed higher fracture load values compared to the parent plastic. Microstructural analysis shows the layer of metal mesh sandwiched between ABS layers indicating the existence of a bond holding the layers of metal and plastic together. These results demonstrate the capabilities and effectiveness of the proposed process that has shown promising results under tensile and static loading.