When manufacturing parts using material extrusion additive manufacturing and anisotropic polymers, the mechanical properties of a manufactured component are strongly dependent on the print trajectory orientation. We conduct non-planar slicing and optimize the print trajectories to maximize the alignment between the material deposition direction and the stress flow induced by a predefined load case. The trajectory optimization framework considers manufacturability constraints in the form of uniform layer height and line spacing. We demonstrate the method by manufacturing a load bearing mechanical bracket using a 5-axis 3D printer and a liquid crystal polymer material. The failure strength and stiffness of the optimized bracket are improved by a factor of 44 and 6 respectively when compared with conventional printing.
@article{arxiv.2301.04999,
title = {Stress Flow Guided Non-Planar Print Trajectory Optimization for Additive Manufacturing of Anisotropic Polymers},
author = {Xavier Guidetti and Efe C. Balta and Yannick Nagel and Hang Yin and Alisa Rupenyan and John Lygeros},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2301.04999},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
Accepted and published on Elsevier Additive Manufacturing