Abstract
The post-process thermal treatment of thermoplastics improves their mechanical properties, but causes deformations in parts, making them unusable. This work proposes a powder mould to prevent dimensional part deformation and studies the influence of line building direction in part deformations in a post-process thermal treatment of 3D printed polymers. Two sets of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) test samples manufactured by fused deposition modelling (FDM) in six different raster directions have been treated and evaluated. One set has been packed with a ceramic powder mould during thermal treatment to evaluate deformations and mould effectiveness. Thermogravimetric tests have been carried out on ABS samples, concluding that the thermal treatment of the samples does not cause degradations in the polymeric material. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to study internal building geometry and mould influence on part deformation after the thermal treatment. It can be concluded that powder mould considerably reduces dimensional deformations during the thermal treatment process, with length being the most affected dimension for deformation. Attending to the length, mould effectiveness is greater than 80% in comparison to non-usage of moulding, reaching 90% when the building lines are in the same direction as the main part.
Highlights
Fused deposition modelling (FDM) has become the most widely adopted additive manufacturing technology for manufacturing complex structures
The mechanical properties of parts manufactured with the FDM process depend on several variables, such as parameters related to process conditions, parts orientation during manufacturing, percentage filling, space between filaments, etc. [6,7,8]
Internal micro-void patterns and residual thermal stresses resulting from the manufacturing process affect the mechanical properties of the final part [9,10,11]
Summary
Fused deposition modelling (FDM) has become the most widely adopted additive manufacturing technology for manufacturing complex structures. This success can mainly be attributed to its extraordinary ability to manufacture complex parts without special tooling, besides significantly reducing material waste, time and cost process of manufacturing prototypes [1]. Internal micro-void patterns and residual thermal stresses resulting from the manufacturing process affect the mechanical properties of the final part [9,10,11]. Residual stresses are significant during material consolidation of the deposited layers, due to different factors: thermal or cooling stresses owed to differential cooling and building line orientation, resulting in internal stresses, and quenching stresses caused by cooling too quickly below the glass transition point before thermodynamic equilibrium is archived [12]
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