Mechanical Properties of Additively Manufactured Polymer Samples using a Piezo Controlled Injection Molding Unit and Fused Filament Fabrication compared with a Conventional Injection Molding Process

In polymer additive manufacturing (AM), many processes have been developed and optimized in order to achieve decent mechanical properties in recent years. Nonetheless, it is hardly possible to reach the reference properties given by the injection molding process using the same base material. Within this contribution, a process using a piezo controlled injection molding unit was compared with a common fused filament fabrication (FFF) process and the injection molding process. The novel AM process using an injection molding unit can theoretically process any thermoplastic granulate. In order to compare these three mentioned processes, a filament for the FFF was extruded using the same ABS granulate as for the method based on the piezo controlled injection molding unit and the conventional injection molding process. Results show that quasi-static mechanical properties depend more on the achievable density than on the manufacturing process itself while dynamic tests offer r oom for optimizations.