An Empirical Design Tool for Estimating In-Plane Diametric Shrinkage and Bulging of Circular Cylinders Made With Fused-Deposition Modeling
This paper presents two design for additive manufacturing (DfAM) tools for estimating diametric in-plane shrinkage and the longitudinal variation of diameter in circular cylinders produced by the Fused-Deposition Modeling (FDM) method. First, an experiment is conducted by printing thirty cylinders and taking 980 measurements to study the variation of diametric shrinkage along the cylinder axis and with the variation of the top and bottom thicknesses and diameter of the cylinder. The variation of in-plane shrinkage along the axis produced an interesting bulging effect, which is also studied. The studies are conducted using a custom-made, dual-extrusion 3d-printer and a poly-lactic acid plastic. Second, the statistically significant trends from the experiment are compiled into two DfAM tools, presented as charts, which could be used to estimate and compensate for shrinkage and bulging resulting in FDM-printed circular cylinders of comparable sizes used in the study.