Track: Industry 4.0

Abstract

Additive manufacturing technologies have evolved rapidly and steadily over the last decade and they become widely used not only in large, high-level companies, but also in medium-sized industries for both the production of prototypes and mockups and the production of finished components.

Stratasys' patented fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology, or more generally Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), is by far the most cost-effective additive manufacturing (AM) technology especially if compared to powder technologies such as selective laser melting. It offers an extremely wide range of materials from mainstem low-cost polylactic acid to the more advanced carbon fiber PEEK. The use of this technology is usually finalized on the production of prototypes and only few case studies of end-use components can be found in the literature. This is due to the difficulties in predicting the final behavior of the component and the presence of defects that can cause unpredictable premature failures.

This study focuses on describing how it is possible to reduce the defects present in the component with a careful choice of printing parameters and in particular we focus on the effect of the parameter called “line width” and its correlation with the geometry of the part. The results would help to make FFF a more reliable process that could be used for industrial production as well as prototyping.