Surface Enhancement of 3D Printed ABS Composites through Ultrasonic Assisted Chemical Vapour Finishing Processes

Abstract

The advent of 3D printing has revolutionized industries through rapid prototyping and newlinecustomized manufacturing. ABS composites, known for their versatile mechanical and newlinethermal traits, have gained attention for diverse applications. However, refining the surface newlinefinish of 3D-printed ABS composite parts is challenging as compared to pure material. This newlinestudy explores the possibility of enhancing the surface roughness and hardness of 3D printed newlineABS composites via Ultrasonic Assisted Chemical Vapour Finishing (UACVF) process. ABS newlinecomposites with copper (10% weight) are additively manufactured, followed by UACVF newlinetreatment at varying temperatures, air flow rates, and times. Through rigorous analysis using newlineTaguchi, ANOVA and Regression techniques, it has been determined that temperature and newlinetime play pivotal roles in determining surface roughness, with temperature contributing 50% newlineand time contributing 35% to the overall outcome. Moreover, the hardness of the 3D parts newlineexperiences a slight increase, with temperature being the primary influencing factor, newlinecontributing up to 87%, followed by time at 9% newlineIt has been established that temperature and time exert pivotal influences on length variations, newlinewith temperature accounting for 48.18% and time contributing 28.29% to the overall newlineoutcome. Regarding width variations, RPM emerges as the predominant influencing factor, newlinecontributing a substantial 76.85%, followed by time at 12.74%. The Taguchi L9 Design of newlineExperiments (DOE) is utilized to conduct trials, finding the impact of three parameters of newlineUACVF. Multi-response optimization techniques are employed to determine the optimal newlineparameter set that gives the best surface finish, dimensional accuracy, and surface hardness newlineresulting in an overall desirability of 0.5648. The analysis indicated that the Cp values for all newlineresponse parameters exceeded 1.33, and the Cpk values are also greater than 1 newline