Heat Dissipative Effects on Forming Quality of Filaments in FDM Process

As known that heat dissipation plays a very important role in the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process, it can obviously affect the forming quality of filaments and the strength of parts. However, there is not much research work on it. In this paper, based on theoretical analysis of FDM process, combining with the actual machining conditions, it investigates and presents three heat dissipative factors including the ventilation rate, the layered area and the envelope temperature. Some orthogonal experiments are implemented, in which the adhesive strength between the layers and the cross-sectional shrinkage rates are measured so as to evaluate the forming quality. The results indicate that lower ventilation rate, smaller layered area and higher envelope temperature will make the adhesive strength between layers of filaments stronger. Furthermore, the influence degree of the three factors is decreased sequentially and some methods to improve the heat dissipative conditions are also proposed.