Copper Electroforming Optimization for Fused Deposition Modeling Produced ABS Components for Indirect Tooling Applications

Abstract

The market trends from last few decades have increased the pressure on development of the new products in minimum time. This can be supplemented with modification in the manufacturing processes for product development. Since last two decades, additive manufacturing (AM) also known as rapid prototyping has been used to produce components. The present work aims at optimization of thickness of deposition and surface finish of copper on Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) components produced by Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), which can be used for indirect tooling. The different process parameters such as Voltage, Concentration of Copper sulfate Solution (CSS) and deposition time are optimized. The experiment reveals that the best process parameters for maximum deposition rate gives a deposition rate of 0.19 mm/h. The surface roughness is found to be minimum at the lower values of the process parameters as 1.87 [Formula: see text]m. It has been observed that voltage (43.2%) and concentration of CSS (48.8%) significantly affect the deposition rate and for surface finish the concentration of CSS (69.59%) is the major contributor. The microstructure study of the deposited copper reveals a variation in the grain size from coarse to fine as the thickness of the deposited layer increases.