Optimization of Support Material and Build Time in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM)

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) has evolved as one of the fastest growing layer manufacturing (LM) technology because of its capability to build even functional plastic parts with geometrical complexity in a reasonable time period. The quality of the production process depends on various process parameters, the most important of them being layer thickness (h), raster angle (θ), orientation (φ), contour width (c) and part raster width (w). In the present study, the influence of these parameters on two process quality parameters, namely, build time and the support material volume are studied on a rotational part modeled on a FDM 200mc machine. A 25 full factorial Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology was employed and the results for build time and support material volume of the 32 experiments were analyzed using Design Expert®. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was done and based on the ANOVA results the model equation for the two quality parameters in both coded and original factors has been developed. Comments on the results obtained and interaction effects are included at the end of the paper.

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