IDENTIFICATION OF SIGNIFICANT FDM PROCESS PARAMETERS INFLUENCING DIMENSIONAL ACCURACY OF ADDITIVELY MANUFACTURED COMPONENTS

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has increasingly found application in both industrial practice and scientific research in recent years. Due to its accessibility, flexibility, and rapid prototyping capabilities, Fused Deposition Modelling additive technology has become an integral part of development processes. Consequently, additively manufactured components frequently require subsequent modification, optimization, or re-documentation. In this context, the role of reverse geometric modelling gains importance. While this process is relatively stable for conventional components, the dimensional accuracy of CAD models derived from FDM parts is significantly affected by manufacturing deviations induced by printing parameters. This study presents a preliminary experiment aimed at identifying the FDM parameters influencing the dimensional accuracy of cylindrical components. The objective is to exclude insignificant factors from subsequent experiments focused on enhancing the precision of reverse geometric modelling. Four factors were investigated: layer height, infill density, wall thickness, and cut position. Based on ANOVA and Pareto analysis, layer height and cut position were identified as statistically significant, whereas infill density and wall thickness showed no statistically significant impact. The results facilitate a more efficient design of future experiments and contribute to improving the dimensional accuracy of 3D CAD models obtained via reverse geometric modelling.