An Experimental Study to Determine Geometric and Dimensional Accuracy Impact Factors for Fused Deposition Modelled Parts

Distortion can be problematic when manufacturing components using the fused deposition modeling (FDM) rapid prototyping process. The purpose of this research was to investigate the impact of geometric forms along with process parameters on part accuracy for the FDM process. Effective design and analysis in the virtual domain cannot be performed until the impact of component form and the fabrication strategies have on build accuracy are understood. A basic design of experiments was conducted to identify and quantify the effects of process parameters for distortion using components designed with simple geometric shapes containing thick wall and thin wall features. Flatness, perpendicularity and cylindricity were assessed. The effects of position of the part in the work envelop, layer thickness and orientation of the test models were studied. For the initial experiment, the part location impacted the variability of all the data. The interface design impacted the perpendicularity variations, but the concentricity was consistent. The experiment was extended to capture more insight with respect to different interface and thickness ratios. Significant variations related to perpendicularly and flatness was observed. These experiments illustrate that the form and feature interfaces directly impact the accuracy more than the process parameter variants. It is recommended to continue physical experimentation for more complex components in order to be able to predict and quantify potential issues.