On the achieving uniform finishing allowance through identifying shape deviation for additive manufacturing

ABSTRACT

While additive manufacturing (AM), due to the stair-stepping effect, post-processing is required for which parts should be made with uniform post-processing allowance on all surfaces. Four shape deviation situations, namely, oversized, undersize, equal size and mixed-size situations may occur at various surfaces of the part depending on the surface orientation. In this study the initial effort has been made to estimate and control the effect of mixed size shape deviation situation, i.e. combined effect of both oversized and undersize shape deviation situations on the single-layer during slicing which is usually neglected in the existing literature. Thus, this research presents a novel technique to provide uniform finishing allowance by considering the oversized, undersize, mixed size and equal size situation effect simultaneously. New algorithms have been developed to identify shape deviation and to provide uniform post-processing allowance throughout the part. Case studies have been presented to demonstrate the capabilities of developed algorithms. This work also presents a novel computer-aided visualisation (CAV) tool for the computational validation of the proposed algorithm in the virtual environment.

KEYWORDS:

• Additive manufacturing
• slicing
• shape deviation
• uniform post-processing allowance

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Mendeley Data at http://doi.org/10.17632/ds95bdjf6y.1, reference number [V1].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mohammad Taufik

Mohammad Taufik  is  an  Assistant  Professor  in  the  Department of Mechanical  Engineering  of  Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. He received his PhD in the field of additive manufacturing from the PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing Jabalpur.  His research work on additive manufacturing/3D printing had been published in reputed journals and conferences.  He is also serving as a principal investigator (PI) of project titled “Development of a Pellet and Filament Form Integrated Multi-Material Co-Extruder System for Improved Additive Manufacturing Process” sponsored by SERB-DST, New Delhi, India under its Start-up Research Grant (SRG) scheme.  Earlier, he has served as senior research fellow at PDPM IIITDM Jabalpur on SERB-DST sponsored research project.  His interests include CAD/CAM, Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing, Rapid Prototyping & Tooling, Micro Fabrications in Manufacturing, Micro and Nano Finishing and General Mechanical Engineering Design.

Prashant K. Jain

Prashant K. Jain is an Associate Professor in the Mechanical Engineering Discipline of the PDPM Indian Institute of Information Technology, Design and Manufacturing Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India. He obtained his PhD degree at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi in the area of additive manufacturing process. He has published and presented several research articles on part quality improvement in the SLS and FDM process in leading International journals and peer-reviewed International conferences. He is currently dealing with several sponsored research projects as PI & Co-PI. Earlier he has served as Project Scientist and Research Associate at IIT Delhi. His research interests include additive manufacturing, rapid prototyping & tooling, CNC machining, geometric modeling, CAD/CAM integration, computational geometry, human power energy devices and nano technologies in manufacturing.