Strength and Qualities of Mixed Additive Manufacturing Materials

Filament shredders and extruders greatly expand the additive manufacturing material selection. By using recycled filaments, waste and future costs can be efficiently cut while creating in-house, customizable, filaments. Testing mixed filaments is necessary to determine the physical and chemical benefits and costs of mixing filaments. This work aims to characterize mixtures of Polylactic Acid and Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene. Mixtures were characterized through tensile strength testing and differential scanning calorimetry of extruded filament samples. The tested mixed filaments were found to be comparable to purchased filaments, with drastic increases in elasticity and decreases in torsional strength and tensile strength. This study shows that while possible to produce mixed filaments, and in spite of their chemical similarities, mixtures are not comparable in physical strength to pure filaments.