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The paper provides an overview of ways to increase the strength of polymer products obtained by fused filament fabrication (FFF) technology. An algorithm for calculating the spiral toolpaths for the material deposition using multi-axis printing is proposed. The design of the five-axis device for spiral-shaped deposition of the material is shown. Th...

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Prismatic close cells, i.e. honeycomb structure are often used as infill in AM parts for providing physical stability to the skin and mechanical integrity to the object. These cells are periodic in nature and uniform in density. In this research, a new fabrication pattern for honeycomb infill is proposed for additive manufacturing application. The...

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... In addition, the product is firmly attached to the print surface, and a simple grip with a little effort will not be able to remove it, and a large force will break the product. This does not allow organizing fully automatic production of products from one material on a 3D printer [3]. ...
... This early work was confined to small rotating powder beds that simultaneously performed powder recoating and laser melting-thus improving laser utilization. In addition, investigations in parallel productivity have found that gains exist in other forms of additive manufacturing, including directed energy deposition, in which continuous spiral or helical toolpaths have been demonstrated [11][12][13][14][15] to improve productivity. ...
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Laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) enables the fabrication of intricate, geometrically complex structures with a sufficiently fine surface finish for many engineering applications with a diversity of available feedstock metals. However, the production rate of LPBF systems is not well suited for mass production in comparison to traditional manufacturing methods. LPBF systems measure their deposition rates in 100's of grams per hour, while other processes measure in kilograms per hour or even in the case of processes such as forming, stamping, and casting, 100's of kilograms per hour. To be widely adopted in industry for mass production, LPBF requires a new scalable architecture that enables many orders of magnitude improvement in deposition rate, while maintaining the geometry freedom of additive manufacturing. This article explores concepts that could achieve as much as four orders of magnitude increase in the production rate through the application of (1) rotary table kinematic arrangements; (2) a dramatic number of simultaneously operating lasers; (3) reductions of laser optic size; (4) improved scanning techniques; and (5) an optimization of toroidal build plate size. To theoretically demonstrate the possibilities of production improvements, a productivity analysis is proposed for synchronous reluctance motors with relevance to the electric vehicle industry, given the recent increase in the diversity of printable soft magnetic alloys. The analysis provides insights into the impact of the architecture and process parameters necessary to optimize rotary powder bed fusion for mass production.
... (Tekinalp et al., 2014;Goh et al., 2021;Ma et al., 2019) In many instances, a part can be designed with reinforcement in the plane of loading, yet this is not always the case. There are many approaches to increasing strength in the Z direction of additively manufactured FFF parts such as annealing (Zhang and Moon, 2021), Z-pinning (Duty et al., 2019) and spiral toolpaths (Avdeev et al., 2019), but all of these technologies are limited to plastic strength (as opposed to continuous fiber composite strength). Interlaminar strength can be increased by placing fiber in all directions instead of in just one plane, but routing continuous fiber on more than one plane requires significantly more complex toolpath planning and multi-axis capable hardware, making the technology only appropriate for the most demanding industries, such as aerospace and defense. ...
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Purpose Many additively manufactured parts suffer from reduced interlayer strength. This anisotropy is necessarily tied to the orientation during manufacture. When individual features on a part have conflicting optimal orientations, the part is unavoidably compromised. This paper aims to demonstrate a strategy in which conflicting features can be functionally separated into “co-parts” which are individually aligned in an optimal orientation, selectively reinforced with continuous fiber, printed simultaneously and, finally, assembled into a composite part with substantially improved performance. Design/methodology/approach Several candidate parts were selected for co-part decomposition. They were printed as standard fused filament fabrication plastic parts, parts reinforced with continuous fiber in one plane and co-part assemblies both with and without continuous fiber reinforcement (CFR). All parts were loaded until failure. Additionally, parts representative of common suboptimally oriented features (“unit tests”) were similarly printed and tested. Findings CFR delivered substantial improvement over unreinforced plastic-only parts in both standard parts and co-part assemblies, as expected. Reinforced parts held up to 2.5x the ultimate load of equivalent plastic-only parts. The co-part strategy delivered even greater improvement, particularly when also reinforced with continuous fiber. Plastic-only co-part assemblies held up to 3.2x the ultimate load of equivalent plastic only parts. Continuous fiber reinforced co-part assemblies held up to 6.4x the ultimate load of equivalent plastic-only parts. Additionally, the thought process behind general co-part design is explored and a vision of simulation-driven automated co-part implementation is discussed. Originality/value This technique is a novel way to overcome one of the most common challenges preventing the functional use of additively manufactured parts. It delivers compelling performance with continuous carbon fiber reinforcement in 3D printed parts. Further study could extend the technique to any anisotropic manufacturing method, additive or otherwise.
... Сглаживание анизотропии механических свойств печатного объекта требует принципиального изменения его структуры, и это можно сделать только за счет его выращивания неплоскими слоями на основе процесса печати, использующего дополнительные степени свободы (наклон и вращение) изделия в процессе производства [18]. Этот подход уже показал свою действенность для изделий из чистого ABS-пластика [1]. ...
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3D printing is a process that has become widely used in recent years, allowing the production of parts with relatively complicated shapes from metallic and non-metallic materials. In some cases, it is challenging to evaluate the ability of 3D printers to make fine details of parts. For such an assessment, the printing of samples showing intersections of surfaces with low angle values was considered. An experimental plan was designed and materialized to highlight the influence of different factors, such as the thickness of the deposited material layer, the printing speed, the cooling and filling conditions of the 3D-printed part, and the thickness of the sample. Samples using areas in the form of isosceles triangles with constant height or bases with the same length, respectively, were used. The mathematical processing of the experimental results allowed the determination of empirical mathematical models of the power-function type. It allowed the detection of both the direction of actions and the intensity of the influence exerted by the input factors. It is concluded that the strongest influence on the printer’s ability to produce fine detail, from the point of view addressed in the paper, is exerted by the vertex angle, whose reduction leads to a decrease in printing accuracy.
... Thus, the utilization of computational algorithms to find this desired orientation is crucial to the FDM process. Besides, Avdeev et al. [44] create a cylinder inside any given geometry and deposit a spiral toolpath upon the cylinder surface to increase the strength of the build. Some other studies on optimization on the deposition toolpath improve the product qualities [27,28]. ...
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The fused filament fabrication (FFF) process deposits thermoplastic material in a layer-by-layer manner, expanding the design space and manufacturing capability compared with traditional manufacturing. However, the FFF process is inherently directional as the material is deposited in a layer-wise manner. Therefore, the in-plane material cannot reach the isotropy character when performing the tensile test. This would cause the strength of the print components to vary based on the different process planning selections (building orientation, toolpath pattern). The existing toolpaths, primarily used in the FFF process, are linear, zigzag, and contour toolpaths, which always accumulate long filaments and are unidirectional. Thus, this would create difficulties in improving the mechanical strength from the existing toolpath strategies due to the material in-plane anisotropy. In this paper, an in-plane isotropy toolpath pattern is generated to enhance the mechanical strength in the FFF process. The in-plane isotropy can be achieved through continuous deposition while maintaining randomized distribution within a layer. By analyzing the tensile strength on the specimens made by traditional in-plane anisotropy toolpath and the proposed in-plane isotropy toolpath, our results suggest that the mechanical strength can be reinforced by at least 20% using our proposed toolpath strategy in extrusion-based additive manufacturing.
... Due to the process characteristics, voids are significantly more prevalent and can adversely impact the mechanical performance (Eiliat & Urbanic, 2018Medellin-Castillo & Zaragoza-Siqueiros, 2019). Many investigations have been performed to exploit the toolpath to improve mechanical properties, such as surface roughness and tensile and flexural strength (Avdeev et al., 2019;Kubalak, Wicks, & Williams, 2019;. proposed a process planning approach for adaptive contour parallel toolpath with variable bead width using level-set based algorithm with implicit approach, for reduction in the voids due to geometric errors and improving printability of features. ...
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The advent of additive manufacturing (AM) has brought about radically new ways of designing and manufacturing of end-use parts and components, by exploiting freedom of design. Due to the unique manufacturing process of AM, both design and process parameters can strongly influence the part properties, thereby enlarging the possible design space. Thus, finding the optimal combination of embodiment design and process parameters can be challenging. A structured and systematic approach is required to effectively search the enlarged design space, to truly exploit the advantages of AM. Due to lowered costs in computing and data collection in the recent years, data-driven strategies have become a viable tool in characterization of process, and researches have starting to exploit data-driven strategies in the design domain. In this paper, a state-of-the-art data-driven design strategy for fused filament fabrication (FFF) is presented. The need for data-driven strategies is explored and discussed from design and process domain, demonstrating the value of such a strategy in designing an FFF part. A comprehensive review of the literature is performed and the research gaps and opportunities are analysed and discussed. The paper concludes with a proposed data-driven framework that addresses the identified research gaps. The proposed framework encompasses knowledge management and concurrent optimization of embodiment design and process parameters to derive optimal FFF part design. Contribution of this paper is twofold: A review of the state-of-the-art is presented, and a framework to achieve optimal FFF part design is proposed.
... Currently, multi-axis printer is a new mechanical mode in 3D printing. Avdeev [9] has used spiral printing path under five-axis fused-filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printer to increase the strength of the tested model, and enhancement of the strength up to 2.2 times under flexural testing. Yerazunis [10] has used fiveaxis FFF 3D printer to produce hemispherical testing samples and showed a significant improvement in the strength of samples, which was three to five times stronger than conventional three-axis printing parts. ...
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The objective of this paper is to present the development of 3D digital manufacturing through synchronous 5-axes printing for greatly enhancing the strength of the printed parts. In traditional fused deposition manufacturing (FDM), which is one of the digital manufacturing technologies, the melted material is required to be extruded from the nozzle on the workspace platform with a fixed direction. The strength is restricted in the direction of perpendicular to the layers since the printing way is layer by layer. The poor adhesion between the layers becomes a weakness to resist external force, especially when the force exerted from different directions. In this paper, algorithms for synchronous five axes printing based on the surface printing trajectory has been proposed to overcome the lack of strength issue. A five axes synchronous 3D printing machine developed in our NTU Intelligent Robotics and Automation Lab enhances the strength of the printed parts by adding additional materials to the surface of the parts. Five axes printing can achieve the goal of printing in different orientations so that the strength of the printed parts is greatly enhanced in comparison with the printing in a fixed direction only. The five axes synchronous 3D printing has been successfully demonstrated in physical printing. The strength analysis of printed parts is also performed under the three-point bending test and the tensile test. It shows that the strength of the five axes printed sample is increased by nearly three times in the bending test and nearly two times stronger in the tensile test.
... In the CLFDM process, the filament is deposited along curved paths adapted to the contours of the parts instead of planar paths (Chakraborty et al., 2008). Thus, the fabricated parts with better structure and strength are realized (Avdeev et al., 2019;Lee et al., 2007). For a 3D model with both an inclined surface and a curved surface, as shown in Figure 1(a), it is almost impossible to achieve an accurate and smooth surface under traditional flat layer-based deposition because of the staircase effect, as shown in Figure 1(b). ...
... Because of the discontinuous filament, the mechanical strength of the model in Figure 1(d) is also weak. Based on spiral toolpath material deposition, the produced fused filament fabrication technology parts show more uniform strength characteristics in different directions, especially the bending strength and compressive strength (Avdeev et al., 2019). Therefore, reasonable slicing and printing process are critical to the printed parts. ...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to design and develop a rotary three-dimensional (3D) printer for curved layer fused deposition modeling (CLFDM), and discuss some technical challenges in the development. Design/methodology/approach Some technical challenges include, but are not limited to, the machine design and control system, motion analysis and simulation, workspace and printing process analysis, curved layer slicing and tool path planning. Moreover, preliminary experiments are carried out to prove the feasibility of the design. Findings A rotary 3D printer for CLFDM has been designed and developed. Moreover, this printer can function as a polar 3D printer for flat layer additive manufacturing (AM). Compared with flat layer AM, CLFDM weakens the staircase effect and improves geometrical accuracy and mechanical properties. Hence, CLFDM is more suitable for parts with curved surfaces. Research limitations/implications Double extruders have brought improved build speed. However, this paper is restricted to complex process planning and mechanical structures, which may lead to collisions during printing. Meanwhile, the rotation range of the nozzle is limited by mechanical structures, affecting the manufacturing capability of complex curved surfaces. Originality/value A novel rotary 3D printer, which has four degrees of freedom and double extruders, has been designed and manufactured. The investigation on the prototype has proved its capability of CLFDM. Besides, this rotary 3D printer has two working modes, which brings the possibility of flat layer AM and CLFDM.