Laser assisted finishing process for improved surface finish of fused deposition modelled parts

Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is a popular Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology. AM based FDM process allows the fabrication of prototypes, tools and direct parts without any geometrical constraints. However, finishing issues such as visible rough patterns are inherent fabrication constraints of FDM parts, which limits the industrial scopes. The aim of this work is to provide the in-depth investigation of the finishing of fused deposition modelled polymer parts by the laser process. This research provided a novel strategy of coupling the FDM process and laser finishing. Empirical models have been developed for average surface roughness, skewness and kurtosis by which average and spatial properties (i.e., relative and combined) of profile distribution over the finished parts have been measured and analyzed. Practical parts have been dealt with in this paper and the change in roughness parameters have been analyzed before and after laser process. Empirical analysis has been used to understand main and interaction effects of different finishing parameters, namely the resolution and laser power, and the part build orientation during FDM. Empirical analysis presented that the interaction have more significant effects than main effects of laser power which is one of the individual parameters of the coupled operation. The experimental result of coupled operation shows that the developed laser assisted finishing process completely eliminates the visible rough patterns, thereby improving surface finish of FDM parts. This research also discussed importance of post finishing techniques and established the quantitative comparison between the published FDM finishing work and present technique to show the effectiveness of the proposed technique in relation to them. (C) 2017 The Society of Manufacturing Engineers. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.