A Numerical Approach to Measure the Surface Roughness of FDM Build Part

Abstract

Abstract The fused deposition modelling (FDM) technology is used to fabricate 3D physical models from CAD data by adding material one over another within a reasonable time and less material waste. Since FDM is an additive manufacturing process, build parts are severely affected by stair case effect produced during part fabrication. While any inclination parts are fabricated this stair case effect plays a vital role in determining surface roughness of build parts. Since FDM is a parametric dependent process its performance characteristics are largely influenced by various controllable as well as uncontrollable process parameters. In this research work, the effect of four controllable process parameters i.e. layer thickness, raster width, overlap distance and part orientation on the surface roughness of fused deposition modelling (FDM) is numerically investigated and the mathematical modelling of surface roughness is formulated. Design of experiment (DOE) with face centered central composite design (FCCCD) is adopted to minimize the number of experiments. Result shows that layer thickness has most influencing parameters on surface roughness. Mathematical modelling are suggested to measure the surface roughness of FDM build parts.