Applications
ABS's light weight and ability to be injection molded and extruded make it useful in manufacturing products such as drain-waste-vent (DWV) pipe systems, musical instruments (recorders, plastic clarinets, and piano movements), golf club heads (due to its good shock absorbance), automotive trim components, automotive bumper bars, medical devices for blood access, enclosures for electrical and electronic assemblies, protective headgear, whitewater canoes, buffer edging for furniture and joinery panels, luggage and protective carrying cases, small kitchen appliances, and toys, including Lego bricks.
ABS plastic ground down to an average diameter of less than 1 micrometer is used as the colorant in some tattoo inks. Tattoo inks that use ABS are extremely vivid. This vividness is the most obvious indicator that the ink contains ABS, as tattoo inks rarely list their ingredients.
ABS is also commonly used in rapid prototyping extrusion-based 3D printers. Its glass transition temperature makes it a material of choice for rapid prototyping — relatively high as to reduce unwanted deformation at slightly elevated temperatures but low enough to be safely attainable with standard extrusion setups.
Read more about this topic: Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene