FUSED DEPOSITION MODELLING OF

RAPID PROTOTYPING

Dr. Sourabh Bhaskar

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Arya Institute of Engineering and Technology, Kukas, Jaipur
 INTRODUCTION AND WORKING OF FUSED
DEPOSITION MODELLING

 FDM, the name itself gives the idea that the parts are formed by
deposition of the fused material in layers.

 This RP technique is used in modelling, prototyping and

production applications.

 FDM was developed by S. Scott Crump in the late 1980s and

was commercialized in 1990 by Stratasys.

 In the FDM process, a gantry-robot which is fitted with the

extruder head moves in X & Y directions. The table moves in
vertical Z-axis. When a layer gets deposited on the table, it goes
down according to the layer thickness and the subsequent layers
are built in the same way.
 In order to build complex shaped parts, FDM uses
support material apart from the build material which
supports the overhanging structures during the process
and helps in maintaining structural integrity of part
until it is strengthened before the support material is
removed by breaking or by dissolving using
appropriate solvents.
Materials used in making FDM parts:

 Most of the existing FDM machines use thermoplastic materials

which are in a filament form for the extrusion and deposition
purpose. Acrylonitrile Butadiene styrene (ABS) and Polylactide
(PLA) thermoplastics are predominantly used in the process.

 The above mentioned materials are used in following forms:

i.) Build material: This material is used to obtain actual part.

ii.) Support material: This material is used to construct
support structures for the actual part. The support material is
otherwise called as dissolvable material if it is dissolvable.
Steps to be carried out to build a model:

 Create a CAD model of the product.

 Save it in the Stereo-lithography (STL) file format.

 Load the .stl file in to the slicing software or the interface

platform between the specific machine and the computer.

 Upload the sliced file into the FDM machine.

 Run the machine with required settings.

 Detach the part from the table after completion.

VARIOUS PROCESS PARAMETERS IN FDM

 Orientation:
Part build orientation or orientation refers to the inclination of the
part in the build platform with respect to X, Y, and Z axis, where X
and Y-axis are considered parallel to build platform and Z- axis is
along the direction of part build.
 Layer thickness:
It is the thickness of layer deposited by nozzle and depends upon the
type of nozzle used.

 Raster angle:
It is a direction of raster relative to the X-axis of the build table.

 Part raster width (raster width):

It is the width of raster pattern used to fill interior regions of part
curves.

 Raster to raster gap (air gap):

It is the gap between two adjacent rasters on same layer.

 Cusp height:
It is calculated as the maximum normal distance between facet and
the deposited part considering the edges of the slices to be rectangular
 Speed of deposition:
It is the rate at which the nozzle deposits the raster.

Other parameters:
1. Shell: It refers to the outermost boundary of the layer.

2. Infill: Everything that is neither shells, nor roof, nor floor is filled
with an internal lattice called infill.

CHARACTERISTICS CONSIDERED IN A FDM BUILT PART

 Products manufactured using Fused Deposition Modelling
technology can be characterized by technical indices – strength of
certain kind (tensile, flexural strength or impact resistance),
dimensional accuracy, as well as economic indices, such as
manufacturing time and amount of support and build material
used. Many parameters mentioned above have direct and indirect
influence on these indices.
Characteristics that are predominantly considered in FDM built
parts are as follows:
A.) Dimensional Accuracy:
Dimensional accuracy understood as degree of compatibility of
basic dimensions of the obtained product with dimensions of the
ideal product (nominal dimensions).With respect to the parameters
affecting the dimensional accuracy, part orientation plays a major
in obtaining the dimensional accuracy of the part.

B.) Surface roughness:

As it is considered as one of the important characteristic in any
functional part manufactures by conventional and unconventional
processes it does the same with the FDM built parts. Surface
Roughness is considered as one major challenging quest for the
researches today and many of them are working on the ways to
produce products with less surface roughness which will be a great
addition to the functional prototypes.
The increase in the surface roughness of the prototypes is due to the
inherent disadvantages in the layered manufacturing processes. They
can be grouped as follows:

 Layer thickness:
As the thickness of the layer increases, the roughness increases. This is clearly
illustrated in the figure
 Stair case effect:
According to any RP process, the layer by layer building process
introduces an error on the amount of material used compared to the
volume specified by the computer aided design model. This error
causes the staircase effect on the surface and adversely affects the
dimensional accuracy as well as surface finish for different part build
orientations. Inclined and curved surfaces show staircase effects
more predominantly than other surfaces.
 The orientation, at which the part is built, has a significant effect
on the quality of various surfaces of the part.

 The orientation of part also affects other factors such as the build
time, the complexity of support structure, shrinkage, trapped
volume, and material flow in many rapid prototyping processes.

 There is no way the staircase effect can be completely

eliminated. However, the effect can be reduced by decreasing the
layer thickness and by orienting the part such that the effect of
overall staircase error is greatly reduced.

 It is because of the staircase the edges of the slices may be

completely out of the CAD model or they may be completely
inside the CAD model as shown in figure
(C.) Mechanical Strength Characteristics

Strength of the parts made in FDM process depends on the bonding

between the individual raster’s. The strength characteristics are
directly proportional to the bonding of the filaments and the type of
the fill used to occupy the space of the part which is related to the
density of the part. The type of infill used by different manufactures
may differ in their shapes. Density of the infill is also a major factor
in determining the strength of the built part.
ADVANTAGES

1. Complex parts can be produced with good accuracy and with low
cost when compared to conventional manufacturing process.
2. No need for special toolings.
3. As simple as printing of copy from normal inkjet printer.

DISADVANTAGES

1. FDM is a costlier process.

2. The size of the output product is limited to a very small size.
3. Raw material limitations. (No metal based filaments can be used
due to requirement of high temperatures).
4. FDM is a developing process.