Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Shahrain Mahmood, Dr Ahmed Qureshi, Dr Kheng-Lim GohORCiD, Dr Didier Talamona
Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the tensile strength of partially filled fused filament fabrication (FFF) printed parts with respect of cross-sectional geometry of partially filled test pieces. It was reported in the authors’ earlier work that the ultimate tensile strength (UTS) is inversely proportional to the cross-sectional area of a specimen, whereas the number of shells and infill density are directly proportional to the UTS with all other parameters being held constant. Here, the authors present an in-depth evaluation of the phenomenon and a parametric model that can provide useful estimates of the UTS of the printed part by accounting for the dimensions of the solid floor/roof layers, shells and infills. Design/methodology/approach – It was found that partially filled FFF printed parts consist of hollow sections. Because of these voids, the conventional method of determining the UTS via the gross cross-sectional area given by A b h, where b and h are the width and thickness of the printed part, respectively, cannot be used. A mathematical model of a more accurate representation of the cross-sectional area of a partially filled part was formulated. Additionally, the model was extended to predict the dimensions as well as the lateral distortion of the respective features within a printed part using input values from the experimental data. Findings – The result from this investigation shows that to calculate the UTS of a partially filled FFF part, the calculation based on the conventional approach is not sufficient. A new meta-model is proposed which takes into account the geometry of the internal features to give an estimate of the strength of a partially filled printed part that is closer to the value of the strength of the material that is used for fabricating the part. Originality/value – This paper investigates the tensile strength of a partially filled FFF printed part. The results have shown that the tensile strength of a partially filled part can be similar to that of a solid part, at a lower cost: shorter printing time and lower material usage. By taking into account the geometries within a printed part, the cross-sectional area can be accurately represented. The mathematical model which was developed would aid end-users to predict the tensile strength for a given set of input values of the process parameters.
Author(s): Mahmood S, Qureshi AJ, Goh KL, Talamona D
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Rapid Prototyping Journal
Year: 2017
Volume: 23
Issue: 3
Pages: 524-533
Online publication date: 13/03/2017
Acceptance date: 08/07/2016
ISSN (print): 1355-2546
ISSN (electronic): 1758-7670
Publisher: Emerald Publishing Limited
URL: https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-10-2015-0151
DOI: 10.1108/RPJ-10-2015-0151
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric
