Abstract
Recent developments in additive manufacturing have moved towards a new trend in material extrusion processes (ISO/ASTM 52910:2018), dealing with the direct extrusion of thermoplastic and composite material from pellets. This growing interest is driven by the reduction of costs, environmental impact, energy consumption, and the possibility to increase the range of printable materials. Pellet additive manufacturing (PAM) can cover the same applications as fused filament fabrication (FFF), and in addition, can lead to scale towards larger workspaces that cannot be covered by FFF, due to the limited diameters of standard filaments. In the first case, the process is known as micro- or mini-extrusion (MiE) in the literature, in the second case the expression big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) is very common. Several models are available in literature regarding filament extrusion, while there is a lack of modeling of the extrusion dynamics in PAM. Physical and chemical phenomena involved in PAM have high overlap with those characterizing injection molding (IM). Therefore, a systematic study of IM literature can lead to a selection of the most promising models for PAM, both for lower (MiE) and larger (BAAM) extruder dimensions. The models concerning the IM process have been reviewed with this aim: the extraction of information useful for the development of codes able to predict thermo-fluid dynamics performances of PAM extruders.
Highlights
Industry 4.0 has introduced new business models focused on consumers and product customization
Additive manufacturing (AM) plays a key role in the Industry 4.0 scenario, leading to the manufacturing of a physical three-dimensional object starting from a computer-aided design (CAD) model
0.8 cm, which is around 30 times larger [6]. All these advantages call for models, analytical and/or numerical, that can be used to perform accurate analysis of pellet extrusion-based processes and that can account for different dimensions involved in big area additive manufacturing (BAAM) and MiE
Summary
Industry 4.0 has introduced new business models focused on consumers and product customization. 0.8 cm, which is around 30 times larger [6] All these advantages call for models, analytical and/or numerical, that can be used to perform accurate analysis of pellet extrusion-based processes and that can account for different dimensions involved in BAAM and MiE. It must be recognized that a well-known manufacturing process, namely injection molding (IM), shares several aspects with PAM It is worth noting, that some of the main assumptions applied in modeling the IM process cannot be used in the transition to a mathematical theory for MiE, mainly because of the smaller size of the extrusion system used The same distinction is made for compression and metering zones, respectively in Sections 2.2 and 2.3
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
