Issue 50

N. Chatzidai et alii, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 50 (2019) 407-413; DOI: 10.3221/IGF-ESIS.50.34 407 Focused on the research activities of the Greek Society of Experimental Mechanics of Materials Experimental and numerical study on the influence of critical 3D printing processing parameters Nikoletta Chatzidai, Dimitrios Karalekas University of Piraeus, Laboratory of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies and Testing, Department of Industrial Management and Technology nchatzi@unipi.gr; dkara@unipi.gr; dkara@webmail.unipi.gr ; A BSTRACT . In the present work the temperature profile variations generated in rectangular specimens built using the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process, at different printing speeds and orientations, were investigated. The temperature recordings were achieved by the integration of temperature sensors throughout the 1 st and/or 21 st building layer of the specimens. The experimental results show that the temperature values inside the specimen re- main above the glass transition temperature (T g ) even at the end of the fabrica- tion process. Higher values were obtained when increasing the printing speed and decreasing the printing path. The experimental results were compared to the corresponding ones derived by simulation of the thermal diffusion problem via Finite Element Analysis. The calculated maximum temperature values were in good agreement with the experimentally recorded ones. K EYWORDS . Additive manufacturing; Fused deposition modelling; Process parameters; Temperature profiles; Finite element analysis. Citation: Chatzidai, N., Karalekas, D., Expe- rimental and numerical study on the influence of critical 3D printing processing parameters, Frattura ed Integrità Strutturale, 50 (2019) 407-413. Received: 18.01.2019 Accepted: 21.05.2019 Published: 01.10.2019 Copyright: © 2019 This is an open access article under the terms of the CC-BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. I NTRODUCTION dditive manufacturing (AM) or layer manufacturing (LM) have developed intensively over the last decades, pro- viding the potentiality to build simple or more complex 3D objects of varying material types and forms. As defined by the ASTM:F2792-12a (2012) standard, additive manufacture is the “process of joining materials to make objects from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing methodologies, such as traditional machining”. AM techniques are gaining ground in industries, since their ability to make the manufacturing and the assembly process less complicated help to shorten the product development cycle time. Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is one of the several existing technologies included in the category of the AM techniques. It became popular due to its low cost, easy operation and reproducibility [1]. As described in previous works [2-5], the FDM method deposits rasters of molten thermoplastic polymers, such as Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) or Polylactic Acid (PLA), that solidify into the final desired shape. During the fabrication process, filament of the thermoplastic material is fed into a heated extrusion tip, where it liquefies above its glass transition temperature (T g ), and A