Comparative Study of Tribological Parameters of 3D Printed ABS and PLA Materials

Rapid prototyping today is observed into practice and is being recognized as a significant technology for design. It demonstrates the process of design situated between conceptual design and real-world construction. It is used to automatically construct physical models from computer-aided design data or is a group of technique used to quickly fabricate a scale model of a physical part or assembly using three-dimensional computer-aided design data. The “three-dimensional printers allow designers to quickly create tangible prototypes of their designs rather than two-dimensional pictures”. The 3D printer used works on fused deposition modelling (FDM) in which two materials are used to make 3D models out of the design made on CAD software. The two materials used are polylactic acid (PLA) and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS). The model of a pin will be formed using these two materials using various parameters. These parameters are—layer thickness, infill type, infill density and raster angle. In total, we will have then six parameters which include 3D printing parameters and the two materials. Using these five parameters, design of experiments will be created using the software Minitab. Various combinations will be created in the DOE with these six parameters. The pin will be then tested on the pin-on-disc machine which will help us to tell the wear rate and the coefficient of friction of the material through graphs. These graphs will help us decide the combination of parameters which have the most and the weak durability and thus can be used to create the parts we want to create for various industries. This way a comparative study of the tribological test between the two materials will be created.