Evaluation of analytical modeling for improvement of surface roughness of FDM test part using measurement results

In additive manufacturing (AM) processes, the tessellation of CAD model and the slicing procedure are the significant factors resulting unsatisfactory surface quality, where the topics related to surface roughness have been a key issue in this regard. In this paper, analytical models which have been presented to express surface roughness distribution in fused deposition modeling (FDM) are assessed according to the variations in surface build angle by considering the main factors which crucially affect surface quality. Analytical models are verified by implementation and comparison with empirical data derived from the comprehensive FDM fabricated test part. Finally, the most accurate model for estimation of surface roughness in the process planning stage for optimization of effective parameters have been introduced upon calculating the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) as performance criteria of each model in various equal ranges.