Experimental Study On Process And Precision Of Fused Deposition Modeling

Currently, due to the remarkable manufacturing compliance, part complicacy and market requirement adaptability, Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) has become one of the most widely applied rapid prototyping technique. It plays an increasingly important role in rapid manufacturing and tooling. Compared with other rapid prototyping processes, FDM process has the advantages of lower cost, higher cleanness and security. The prototype quality greatly restricts its application scope. Therefore, to improve the prototype precision is of great practical significance for FDM process.Firstly, in this paper, the author roundly analyzes various factors that affect dimensional accuracy, surface quality and shape accuracy in FDM prototype. The root causes of each modeling error are studied and some countermeasures are provided.The warpage deformation of prototype in FDM is presented and the essence of deformation and interacting principle are analyzed. The mathematic model of warpage deformation has been built and developed. The influence factors such as deposition layer number, temperature of chamber environment, section length and scanning speed are analyzed quantificationally and separately.Based on the theoretical analysis, the author accomplishes the orthogonal test in which the author utilizes the "Fprint" FDM machine as the trial platform, exploits the buckling deformations of the manufactured parts as the measurement indicators, aims at the major process parameters during the modeling process to design the test specimen. The influence levels of each factor in the FDM process is studied by range chart and ANOVA. Thus the optimal results of minimizing the warpage deformation can be obtained. Some modified methods to decrease the warpage deformation of prototype are also proposed in the end.The author makes further experimental investigation to study the temperature distribution in chamber along the X and Y axis. The effect on prototype quality by the temperature distribution is analyzed. The result can be guidance to placement and forming direction for the process of different parts.