Process Monitoring of Extrusion Based 3D Printing via Laser Scanning

Extrusion based 3D Printing (E3DP) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique that extrudes semi-liquid polymer in order to build up components using a layer-by-layer approach. Due to this approach, Addi-tive Manufacturing (AM) typically requires long production times in comparison to mass production pro-cesses such as Injection Moulding. Failures at a certain level during the AM process are often only noticed offline and frequently lead to the rejection of the part in terms of dimensions and performance, providing an important loss of time and money. A possible solution to improve the accuracy, reliability and robustness of a manufacturing technology is the integration of sensors to monitor and control the process. In this way, er-rors can be detected online and compensated in an early stage. To achieve this, a modular 2D laser triangu-lation scanner is integrated into an E3DP machine and feedback signals are analysed. A 2D laser triangula-tion scanner is specifically selected here owing to the very compact size, the achievable accuracy and the possibility of capturing 3D geometrical data. In this way the implemented system is able to provide both quantitative and qualitative information (e.g. track dimensions and error detection at track and layer level). In this work, first steps towards the development of a quality control loop for extrusion-based 3D printing processes are presented and opportunities are discussed.

Jaar van publicatie:2014

Toegankelijkheid:Open