Experimental Optimization of Green FDM Process Parameters: An Integrated MCDM Approach

Abstract

AbstractThe 3D printing, also known as Additive Manufacturing (AM), is an emerging manufacturing technology in various industries like in automotive, aerospace, space applications, etc. Among the various AM process, fused deposition modeling (FDM) process is well known and widely used in developing the models. In spite of its advantages, few disadvantages of FDM process namely high energy consumption, production time and emission concentration, and rates of Fine Particles (FP), Ultra-Fine Particles (UFPs) as well as Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). Selection of optimum parameters for any FDM process to optimize the environmental effects is a cumbersome and difficult task and is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. In this paper, an attempt is made to optimize the green (i.e., environmental parameter into account) FDM process parameters using an integrated MCDM method, i.e., Entropy with VIKOR methods considering two inputs like print temperature (PT) and bed temperature (BT) and three outputs such as particle number concentration (PNC0.3–10 µm), particle number concentration (PNC5.6–560 µm) and specific emission rate (SER). Here, entropy method is used for extraction of precise priority weight while optimal selection of green FDM parameters using VIKOR method. In addition, most significant parameter is determined through parametric analysis. Results shows that, optimal conditions, i.e., PT as 254 °C and PBT as 30 °C and corresponding output as PNC0.3–10 µm = 14 #/cm3, PNC5.6–560 µm = 2.1 × 105 #/cm3 and SER’s = 2.0 × 109 are obtained. The parameter SER is shown significant effect on the green FDM process parameter among other parameters.KeywordsGreen FDMEntropyVIKOROptimizationParametric analysis