Improving the Finished Product’s Quality and Mechanical Properties in Manufacturing of Prototyping Using Fused Deposition Modelling

In today’s expanding market, customers prefer components with excellent mechanical properties and smooth surfaces. Additive manufacturing (AM) has been traditionally limited in full-scale manufacturing due to its mechanical strength and surface roughness. As a result, AM has been primarily utilized for prototyping and job shop production. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) involves the extrusion of wax or plastic materials through nozzles and layering them on a bed or platform to achieve the desired cross-sectional shape. There is a growing demand in industries for high-quality parts produced at a low cost and in a shorter time frame. It becomes crucial to optimize the machine’s process parameters. However, it can be challenging to consistently achieve optimal values, even for a skilled operator. Understanding the FDM system parameters that affect the quality and mechanical properties of the final product is essential. Consequently, this study focuses on optimizing process variables to enhance the surface roughness of FDM products. The response surface methodology (RSM) has been utilized to determine the optimal FDM machining conditions. To plan and analyze experiments, a Design of Experiments (DOE) has been employed, considering factors such as layer thickness, printing temperature, and printing velocity. By integrating these parameters, we have determined the optimal layer thickness to be 0.20 mm, printing temperature to be 205.01 degrees, and printing velocity to be 50 mm/s, resulting in a surface roughness of 0.0510 microns. A confirmation test based on the optimal parameters has demonstrated good agreement with the predicted surface roughness result.