An experimental and theoretical study of the abrasion performance of digital light processing parts

Abstract

Generally, interactions at surface asperities are the cause of wear. Two-Thirds of wear in industry occurs because of the abrasive or adhesive mechanisms. This research presents an analytical model for abrasion of additive manufactured Digital Light Processing products using pin-on-disk method. Particularly, the relationship between abrasion volume, normal load, and surface asperities’ angle is investigated. To verify the proposed mathematical model, the results of this model are verified with the practical experiments. Results show that the most influential parameters on abrasion rate are normal load and surface’s normal angle. Abrasion value increases linearly with increasing normal load. The maximum abrasion value occurs when the surface’s normal angle during fabrication is 45°. After the asperities are worn the abrasion volume is the same for all specimens with different surface’s normal angle. Though layer thickness does not directly affect the wear rate, but surface roughness tests show that layer thickness has a great impact on the quality of the abraded surface. When the thickness of the layers is high, the abraded surface has deeper valleys, and thus has a more negative skewness. This paper presents an original approach in abrasion behavior improvement of DLP parts which no research has been done on it so far; thus, bringing the AM one step closer to maturity.