ABS - Poly(Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, Styrene) Property Data

ABS is a copolymer of Acrylonitrile, Butadiene, and Styrene.  ABS plastics generally possess medium strength and performance and medium cost; ABS is often used as the cost and performance dividing line between standard plastics (PVC, polyethylene, polystyrene, etc.) and engineering plastics (acrylic, nylon, acetal, etc.).  ABS polymers can be engineered by the manufacturer togive a range of physical properties, depending on the ratio of the monomeric constituents and the molecular level connectivity.  Typically, a styrene-acrylonitrile glassy phase is toughened by an amorphous butadiene/butadiene-acrylonitrile rubber phase.

MatWeb has product data on over 1700 different grades of ABS, including high heat ABS, impact modified ABS, antistat ABS, and alloys with other plastics such as polycarbonate, polyurethane, and PVC.  This page will help you to navigate through MatWeb to find the information that you need.

• If you would like to scan the ABS entries in MatWeb, then the MatWeb Material Type Search is a good place to start.  You can select 'ABS Polymer' from the alphabetical listing under thermoplastic and you will be presented with a list of descriptive names grouped by manufacturer.  This search will also find ABS alloys such as PC/ABS.

  You may also select from the drop-down lists of ABS Manufacturers/Compounders or ABS Trade Names available from MatWeb.

• If you are looking for an ABS product with certain performance criteria, then MatWeb's Property Search is the place to start.  You can select 'ABS Polymer' from the list of category choices along with the appropriate property choices.  For example, if you have an application that demands a low electrical (volume) resistivity and a high deflection temperature, you can enter a maximum resistivity of 5000 Ohm-cm and a minimum deflection temperature (at 0.46 MPa load) of 125°C in your search criteria.  This will return only a handful ABS grades of the total selections in MatWeb.

  This same strategy can be used to find fiber-reinforced ABS plastics.  You can again select 'ABS Polymer' from the category box and specify a minimum flexural modulus of 9 GPa, for example.  This search returns about 50 ABS grades; generally only grades with at least 20% glass or carbon fiber reinforcement are stiff enough to meet this flexural modulus requirement.  You can go one step further and eliminate the glass fiber reinforced grades by stipulating a maximum density of 1.25 g/cc. Now only a few carbon fiber reinforced ABS grades are returned - you can then review each of the complete property information datasheets, including properties such as coefficient of thermal expansion or elongation.

  Users who choose to register with MatWeb can take advantage of even more powerful search tools in the Advanced Search page. This allows users to create complex searches from both text and property criteria.

• Product Names from ABS Manufacturers whose Products are included in MatWeb
  If you want data about a specific ABS product, you can enter its trade name or manufacturer in the Search box at the top of any MatWeb page (see example below):