Quantitative analysis of 0% infill density surface profile of printed part fabricated by personal FDM 3D printer

Abstract

Fused deposition modeling or FDM technology is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology commonly used for prototyping applications which suffer seriously from low levels of fluctuated surface finish quality, demanding some hand finishing tool for even the necessary levels of 3D printed parts. This paper, therefore, aims at giving close attention to the variation in the surface roughness profile between the inner and the outer faces of FDM 3D printed parts based on advanced polylactic acid (PLA+) thermoplastic filament material. The surface roughness is quantitatively analyzed using a contact-type test-rig with a 90° angle measurement on each face along with each zone and sub-zone. The obtained results revealed that the surface finish of the inner faces is rougher than those of the outer faces as regards nozzle temperature, nozzle diameter, infill density and layer height is 220°C, 0.5 mm, 0% and 0.3 mm, respectively. The personal FDM 3D printer is thus confirmed to be an excellent platform, flexible, straightforward and cost-effective. Keywords: Additive Manufacturing (AM), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), Surface Profile, 3D Printer.1. Background Rapid Prototyping and 3D PrintingRapid prototyping (RP) refers to a collection of new technologies, such as fused deposition modeling (FDM), direct metal deposition (DMD), selective laser sintering (SLS), inject modeling (IJM) and stereolithography (SLA), which can be used to create any desired 3D physical model of a printed part, element, device or artefact faster than before without machining or tooling [1] by layer manufacturing from computer aided design (CAD) data [2] and without a significant increase in time or cost [3]. This rapid growth of the market has placed 3D printers not just in enormously varied industrial settings but also in schools, universities, and homes, and it is therefore often preferable to call these devices a 'personal 3D printer' or 'desktop 3D printer' [4,5]. The range of applications where FDM 3D printer technology can be used is widespread in different fields, ranging from medical [6] to automotive [7] and aeronautics applications [8]. Currently, as RP is moving towards rapid manufacturing, there is an increasing demand for obtaining good surface quality printed parts as this has more influence on how customers assess the quality of the 3D printed parts. FDM TechnologyOpen source fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of several RP technologies available that is currently attracting attention [9]. The FDM process was established commercially and sold to international trade in the early 1990s in the USA as a form of concept modeling by Stratasys Inc. [10]. Figure 1 shows the schematic concept of the FDM 3D printer process. It begins with a 3D model (or three-dimensional modeling) in a computer aided design (CAD) file in order to calculate the horizontal cross-sections at sufficiently small increments of the layer height of the printed part before converting it to an STL (Stereo-Lithography) format file [11]. The STL (Stereo-Lithog...

Experimental Characterization of the Influence of Nozzle Temperature in FDM 3D Printed Pure PLA and Advanced PLA+

“…Fused deposition modeling (FDM, developed in the 1980s [6] and commercialized in 1990 [7]) is additive manufacturing (AM) technologies that build automatically three-dimensional (3D) physical parts by heating up and extruding down the thermoplastic filaments materials through a small nozzle, without any tooling or machining [8,9,10] and also by eliminating the need for human interventions [11]. They are not only used to fabricate prototypes, but final products are also manufactured with these types of machines [12] with a dimensional tolerance equal to ±1 mm overall [13].…”

Experimental Investigation of Wire-EDM Process Parameters for Surface Roughness in the Machining of Carbon Steel 1017 and Aluminum Alloy 6060

“…The traces were auto-leveled, set up to a linear least-squares (LLS) straight line and then filtered with a standard lowpass of 0.8 mm cut-off wavelength and filter CR ISO. Details of the average surface roughness measurements procedure and calibration trials have been reported elsewhere [38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51]. In general, the calibration results showed that the cantilever beam system (stylus with beam) at only one end was a linear mass-spring system (R 2 > 0.999) under operational and environmental conditions, generally at 20°C ± 1°C temperature and 40% ± 5% relative humidity, with an absolute uncertainties value of < 1% and measurement resolution down to at worst 50 nm.…”

Influence of Multi-Level Printing Process Parameters on 3D Printed Parts in Fused Deposition Molding of Poly(lactic) Acid Plus: A Comprehensive Investigation

“…The traces were auto-leveled direction and set-up to a linear least-squares (LLS) fitting technique (single scan mode) and after that is filtered with a standard low-pass filter (LPF) of 0.8 mm effective cut-off wavelength. Full details of the measurement procedure have been reported elsewhere [18][19][20][21][22]. The calibration results using a standard ball of 22.0161 mm diameter (from Taylor Hobson Precision, Ltd.) after a series of trials showed that the system of the one-end cantilever beam was a linear massspring system regression of R 2 > 0.99, under various working and eco-friendly issues, with an absolute value of each uncertainty of <1% and displacement measurement resolution down to at worst performance of 50 nm.…”

“…Main AM systems are fused deposition molding (FDM) [13], stereolithography (SL) [14], laminated object manufacturing (LOM) [15], selective laser sintering (SLS) [16] and laser engineered net shaping (LENS) [17]. One of the most widely used technologies for 3D printing compared to others competing for dimensional printing technologies is fused deposition modeling (FDM) [18,19,20,21,22] and it is this which is predicted as a sustainable modern manufacturing platform for functional and structural products and also for industrial and house-use [23].…”