Research On Energy Consumption And Nozzle Process Of PLA Fused Deposition Modeling

As an emerging technology,3D printing technology plays an increasingly important role in the field of manufacturing on smart manufacturing and environmental protection now.3D printing was crowned as the third industrial revolution which began in the late 1970 s,with 30 years of development,it has become a mainstream manufacturing process.Fused deposition modeling(FDM)is one of the most widely used molding technologies in many 3D printing technologies.It is favored by its advantages of low cost,simple operation,and environmental protection.PLA is one of the most commonly used materials for FDM techniques that are environmentally friendly,low warping and other advantages.Studying the energy consumption of FDM can help to save costs,and studying the nozzle process and testing the printing specimens can help to improve the mechanical properties and molding accuracy of FDM products,which are all very valuable.The main research contents of the paper are as follows:(1)The print path of the FDM printer is studied,which is a zigzag round-trip scan at a 45° angle.And study the shape of the fused filaments extruded from the nozzle to construct a mathematical model.Analyzing the step effect which affecting the surface quality,the lower the layer height,the closer the forming angle is to 90°,the better the surface quality.(2)To study the energy consumption and time efficiency of plastic product FDM printing,32 models were designed to conduct experiments,and the experiment data about the relationships between different model’s shapes,different model’s heights and section areas,different model’s angles and the energy consumption and time efficiency of plastic product FDM printing were obtained.The experiment results shows that when printing models with same shape and same cubage,the higher the model’s height is,the lower the printing time efficiency is.When printing models with same cubage and height but different shapes,the model with right square prism shape has the highest time efficiency,the models with cylinder or right square prism shape have the lowest energy consumption,and the model with right square pyramid shape has the highest energy consumption.When models are putted by 45 degree angle,the energy consumption is the lowest.The relationships between the varieties of energy consumption and the varieties of model’s height or section area are almost linear.(3)Modifying the original nozzle,designing and manufacturing four kinds of noncircular nozzles with the same area as the original nozzle with 6mm long axis,7mm oval shape,square shape and rectangular shape.Using these 5 different nozzles to print different specimens to measure the difference in mechanical properties and surface quality,and to print 4 kinds of models with the same volume and the same height to measure the consumption of consumables.The experimental results show that the mechanical properties of the specimens printed on the surface with a 6 mm long axis nozzle are the best.Oval nozzle prints specimens with better tensile strength than square nozzle prints specimen.The surface quality of specimen which printed by oval nozzle is better than by square nozzle.The nozzle with 6mm long axis prints the model with the most consumables usage and the rectangular nozzle with the least,and the linear relationship between the consumables usage of the different models is similar for both square nozzles.