Exploring freeze-thaw durability of acrylonitrile styrene acrylate hexagonal honeycombs: additive manufacturing perspectives for outdoor applications

Abstract Additive Manufacturing offers an efficient approach to producing parts with reduced waste, particularly enabling the creation of biomimetic structures. This study focuses on the adaptation of hexagonal honeycomb design into fillet and edge-thickened configurations using Fused Filament Fabrication, a widely employed material extrusion technique. The research is based on determining the tensile and flexural properties of hexagonal honeycomb structures modified with Acrylonitrile Styrene Acrylate (ASA), comparing their strength-to-weight ratios to understand the structural and material properties. Among the tested configurations, the edge-thickened honeycomb exhibits the highest tensile strength-to-weight ratio at 2.62 MPa g −1 , compared to 2.17 MPa g −1 for conventional hexagonal honeycomb and 4.02 MPa g −1 for solid structures. Conversely, the conventional hexagonal honeycomb demonstrates the highest flexural strength-to-weight ratio at 9.69 MPa g −1 , whereas the edge-thickened variant achieves 7.81 MPa g −1 , compared to 13.11 MPa g −1 for solid structures. The study also includes an evaluation of ASA samples under freeze–thaw conditions, with solid and edge-thickened configurations tested at temperatures of −10 °C and 27 °C over multiple cycles. The results indicate that edge-thickened ASA samples show promising tensile strength improvements, while modifications to conventional honeycomb structures enhance flexural strength. Overall, this research highlights the potential of ASA based additive manufacturing for enhancing the mechanical properties of structurally-modified samples like edge-thickened hexagonal honeycomb design, offering insights into their application in various engineering and manufacturing contexts such as in UV testing, automobile industries especially in terms of their material being chemically tested and for any long-term outdoor application.