Analysis of structural features and efficiency of application of modern FDM printers for 3D printing using polymer thermoplastic materials

Abstract

This work presents the main parameters of the current state of the world market of additive manufacturing equipment. For research, the most common type of additive technology was chosen, namely FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) or 3D printing using thermoplastic polymer material. This technology is the most common and is used in industry, engineering design, rapid prototyping, educational process, scientific research, medicine, design and the like. The main works were presented that consider the main characteristics of the equipment, systematize them according to design features and areas of application. Given the insufficient coverage of equipment types and designs in these works, an extensive review of devices based on FDM technology was carried out. The classification of equipment is based on the principle of moving executive bodies, namely the print head and the 3D printer working platform. Based on this, it has been established that there are four main schemes for constructing of 3D printers such as Cartesian, Delta, Polar and schemes based on a robotic manipulator. The most popular models of 3D printers for each of the circuits were given, their main advantages and disadvantages, areas and applications, examples of products manufactured were considered. The review showed that the most widespread in the scheme both in the world and in Ukraine is the Cartesian, which in turn is divided into a number of subspecies. Among them, Prusa, CoreXY and H-Bot schemes are especially popular. They are the most versatile, use almost all types of consumable thermoplastic material, include almost all the range of sizes needed for production of the working area and are the most flexible for modernization. FDM 3D printers based on a robotic arm were also noted. The development of this type of equipment is an example of the introduction of additive technologies in serial automated production. Consideration of the main areas of application and the main advantages and disadvantages of each of the types of 3D printers made it possible to give recommendations on the choice of equipment for spatial printing, depending on the type of activity.