Experimental Evaluation of Environmental Sustainability of Fused Deposition Modelling 3D Method
摘要
Additive manufacturing is an innovative technology across a wide range of industries and Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is the most common additive manufacturing method in the world. It is necessary to evaluate the sustainability of the additive manufacturing process due to global trends to move towards sustainable manufacturing. Environmental sustainability analysis of FDM is crucial because it uses a significant amount of electrical energy and resources. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effect of process parameters on the mechanical properties of the FDM printed product and the environment. The experiments were designed using the half factorial design of experiment (DOE) method considering infill pattern, infill percentage, layer thickness, and nozzle temperature as changing variables. The tensile strength of the printed samples was measured using a tensile strength tester. Variation of tensile strength, material usage, electricity consumption, and CO2 emissions with the changing process parameters was analysed. The results of this study reveal that the tensile strength of the products is influenced by all the key variables considered. Infill percentage is the most influencing parameter on material usage while nozzle temperature is that for the electricity consumption and CO2 emissions.