3D printing of single-walled objects

Abstract

Material deposition additive manufacturing, commonly known as fused deposition modeling (FDM) or 3D printing, is gradually becoming popular for engineering applications ranging from biomedical to construction. In many of these applications, the manufactured objects need to be hollow, or with thin walls. For example, personalized medicines may require 3d printing of thin-walled capsules, and 3D printed housing solutions require single wall of construction structures. Keeping such applications in mind, this paper studies the single-wall extrusion behavior of polylactic acid, a thermoplastic polyester commonly used in 3D printing. Different extrusion parameters, namely, printing temperature, printing speed, layer thickness, extrusion rate etc. have been explored, and their examined their effects on the extrusion properties. The thickness and the uniformity of extrusion were considered as the output parameters. It was observed that the printing temperature has a very significant effect on the achievable flow rate of the extruded material, as higher flow rate requires higher thermal input from the nozzle wall. It is possible to increase flow rate by increasing nozzle temperature, but that may adversely affect the uniformity of the extrusion.