A novel path planning methodology for extrusion-based additive manufacturing of thin-walled parts

Extrusion-based layered deposition is one of the widely used additive manufacturing (AM) technologies due to its flexibility and capability in producing prototypes without geometrical complexity limitations. One of the most important steps in determining the part quality and build time is the path planning, where the trajectory for guiding the extruder is defined by various aspects prior to actual deposition. In this paper, a novel methodology is presented to generate the deposition path for the extrusion-based AM of thin-walled parts, which is difficult to obtain desirable deposition quality using general filling paths. A wavy path pattern is adopted to fill the long and narrow cross-sections that are obtained from the slicing procedure of the thin-walled parts. This novel filling pattern can bring in better deposition results and has more excellence in enhancing the efficiency. The algorithms are proposed for the generation of wavy paths at first. Then, several implementations and optimisation methods are proposed to address some issues and extend its application. Finally, two cases are used to verify the developed methodology, and the comparison analysis demonstrates its evident advantages over traditional filling path in the fabrication efficiency for the extrusion-based additive fabrication of thin-walled objects.