A comparison of thermoplastic materials prepared by 3D printing and injection moulding

![CDATA[3D printing, also referred to additive manufacturing (AM), has been developed as a revolutionary manufacturing process, becoming a potential process to replace conventional manufacturing processes. 3D printing process – Fused Deposition Modelling/Fused Filament Fabrication (FDM/FFF) has been developed to rapidly print thermoplastic products while the traditional manufacturing process – injection moulding has been well developed for making thermoplastic products with a long history. In this research, a comparative study is experimentally conducted to investigate material properties and mechanical behaviours of two commonly-used 3D printing thermoplastic materials – Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) and Polylactic Acid (PLA) via uniaxial tension and three point bending tests according to ASTM standard. The mechanical properties of final-product materials are influenced by manufacturing processes and controlled by main factors that affect that processes. In order to optimise the 3D printing process using available 3D printers at lab, correlations between main control parameters and material properties of ABS and PLA are extracted based on the experimental results obtained considering the mould injection as a benchmarking process. A series of finite element analyses are developed and applied for conducting a parametric study to guide the adjustment of main control parameters of layer-by-layer 3D printing process as a material design tool.]]