ABS Product Carrier
Challenge
A consumer electronics company was looking for a material to hold a product in an automated assembly-line. The material needed to be fairly tough and dimensionally stable, but also inexpensive. The product being assembled needed to be held tightly in the fixture. Because it will be installed and removed many times, we needed to find a material that had some “give” but would also be able to withstand a lot of handling as well as sliding on the assembly line.
Solution
ABS (Acrylonite-Butadiene-Styrene) was chosen for this fixture because it is a cost effective material that offers a good balance of tensile strength, impact and abrasion resistance as well as surface hardness and rigidity. ABS machines well, so we were able to surface the detailed contours and shape of the product being manufactured.
ABS Properties
| DENSITY | ASTM D792 | 0.038 (lb/inᶟ) |
| TENSILE STRENGTH | D638 | 6500 (PSI) |
| TENSILE MODULUS | D638 | 3.6-3.8 (10⁵ PSI) |
| FLEXURAL STRENGTH | D790 | 11000 (psi) |
| FLEXURAL MODULUS | D790 | 3.6-4.0 (10⁵ PSI) |
| ELONGATION | D638 | 5-25 (%) |
| IMPACT STRENGTH | D256 | 4.0-5.5 (IZOD FT-LB/IN OF NOTCH) |
| HARDNESS | D785 | 107 ( R ) |