Abstract
Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, has gained significant interest due to the freedom it offers in creating complex-shaped and highly customized parts with little lead time. However, a current challenge of AM is the lack of geometric accuracy of fabricated parts. To improve the geometric accuracy of 3D printed parts, this paper presents a three-dimensional geometric compensation method that allows for eliminating systematic deviations by morphing the original surface mesh model of the part by the inverse of the systematic deviations. These systematic deviations are measured by 3D scanning multiple sacrificial printed parts and computing an average deviation vector field throughout the model. We demonstrate the necessity to filter out the random deviations from the measurement data used for compensation. Case studies demonstrate that printing the compensated mesh model based on the average deviation of five sacrificial parts produces a part with deviations about three times smaller than measured on the uncompensated parts. The deviation values of this compensated part based on the average deviation vector field are less than half of the deviation values of the compensated part based on only one sacrificial part.
Highlights
Additive Manufacturing (AM) is known for its many advantages in design and manufacturing [1] and its importance has been growing steadily for the last three decades [2]
We demonstrate the proposed compensation scheme on the Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) process, but the method can be used for improving the geometric accuracy of the parts manufactured by any other additive manufacturing process
The proposed method of surface mesh compensation based on 3D metrology feedback adjusts the CAD model to oppose systematic deviations
Summary
Additive Manufacturing (AM) is known for its many advantages in design and manufacturing [1] and its importance has been growing steadily for the last three decades [2]. Like any other manufacturing process, the parts produced by AM deviate from their nominal designed geometry. 3D printing these parts necessitates expensive 3D printers, as the lower cost machines will be unreliable [3]. In this case, the compensation to improve the geometric accuracy of the final part provides a very interesting opportunity by allowing the use of less expensive machines, one to two orders of magnitude cheaper, to produce sufficiently accurate parts. As most machines in this community are of lesser quality and are not professionally maintained and calibrated, the geometric accuracy of printed parts is low. Having an automated and inexpensive way to improve the quality of these parts would be essential in the future to rely on this community in case of emergency
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