Analysis and Optimization of Cost and Material Consumption in Additive Manufacturing

With an increasing demand for customization of products in industries, there is a need for newer processes. Additive manufacturing is one such process that is rapidly being incorporated into commercial production. This paper aims to optimize the cost and material consumption without compromising the tensile strength of specimens prepared using Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) printing. Shell thickness, layer thickness, and infill were chosen as the parameters to be optimized for reduced cost and material consumption. While optimizing for tensile strength, angle was also considered as a parameter. Taguchi’s design of L9 orthogonal arrays has been used to optimize these parameters. Signal-to-noise plots were graphed. For optimized cost and material consumption, layer thickness of 0.3 mm, infill rate of 20%, and shell thickness of 1.2 mm were found to be ideal, while for better tensile strength, layer thickness of 0.1 mm, infill rate of 80%, angle of 0°, and shell thickness of 1.2 mm produced the best results. The tensile strength of the sample prepared from these optimized values was 78.62 MPa, which matched with the predicted results.