Methodologies for pre-processing polymeric filament for Direct Digital Fabrication

Silva, César Miguel Coitos da

http://hdl.handle.net/10400.8/8185

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Authors

Silva, César Miguel Coitos da

Advisor(s)

Correia, Mário António Simões

Coelho, Paulo Jorge Simões

Abstract(s)

The digital age presents alternatives to more traditional manufacturing concepts. One of the alternatives most adopted by the industry and society, in general, focuses on additive manufacturing, which has improved significantly over time, improving the user interface and optimizing parts construction times and quality. In this work is intended to study the impact of dehumidification pre-processing of the material at the Polylactic Acid (PLA) and Polyethylene Terephtalate Glycol (PETG), used in Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM). The results obtained in on the parts produced allowed to draw conclusions about impacts at an aesthetic level and at a mechanical level, and assess whether the pre-processing energy costs are justified, regarding the final quality of the produced part or improvements in their mechanical properties. Measurements of the weight were carried out on the printed pieces for the aesthetic experiments to compare the printed piece with dehumidified, non-dehumidified material, the Computer-Aided Design (CAD) part simulation and slicer software part simulation. The most significant results occurred in the aesthetic tests, as the differences are evident between the part printed with dehumidified material and the part printed with non-dehumidified material. The final weight of the pieces differs in all scenarios, where the lightest pieces are in the CAD software simulation, and heaviest parts are in the simulation of the slicer software. In the tensile tests, the non-dehumidified PLA material obtained better performance when compared to the PLA that was previously dehumidified for 6 hours. In the case of PETG, it was possible to identify the similar tensile strength between the previously dehumidified filament and the filament not previously dehumidified. To conclude the energy study revealed an overall consumption of approximately 0.32 kWh for the dehumidifier and printer set.