Ceramic Titanium Carbide nanopowder as a reinforcement agent of ASA in material extrusion additive manufacturing

In an effort to keep up with the rapidly growing needs of society, manufacturing processes and materials need to be constantly developed. Additive manufacturing (AM) exploits different materials and enables reinforcing them with additives. Acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) is a thermoplastic with high UV and weather conditions resistance. Herein, it was reinforced with ceramic titanium carbide (TiC) nanoparticles. Nanocomposites were developed and evaluated utilizing material extrusion (MEX) AM. TiC loadings ranged between 0 and 12 wt. %. Standard specimens for testing were produced with these loadings. The effect of filler content on mechanical, dynamic mechanical, thermal, rheological, and microstructural properties of the 3D printed coupons was studied. The maximum tensile properties were achieved by the 8 wt. % nanocomposite (13.9% tensile strength and 20.0% Young’s modulus improvement). Overall, considering also the filler cost, the 6 wt. % should be considered the optimum loading in the nanocomposites. Higher loadings resulted in higher porosity, increased microhardness (24.3% increase with 12 wt. % TiC content), and better dimensional accuracy, making nanocomposites suitable for wear-related applications. The impact strength decreased, suggesting that the nanocomposites are not effective for such applications. Overall, this work establishes ASA/TiC as a promising nanocomposite system for outdoor applications and provides design guidelines for optimizing filler content for robust MEX components manufacturing.