The impact of temperature changing on surface roughness of FFF process

Abstract

The current study investigates the surface roughness of models produced by a 3D printer. All models were produced by addition of solid material, a process called fused filament fabrication (FFF): initial extrusion into plastic filament, second extrusion and trace-binding during the 3D printing process. A low cost 3D printer Ultimaker was used to print these items. Polylactic acid (PLA) was used as main polymer material for printing. The temperature was parameter under direct variations in order to examine if there was an influence on roughness of 3d printed models. The surface roughness parameters were: the average mean surface roughness (Ra, μm), the surface roughness depth (Rz, μm), the total height of the roughness profile (Rt, μm) and the arithmetic mean width of profile elements (Rsm, μm). The examination showed conditionality: as temperature was increased the surface roughness parameters were further decreased.