Large-part manufacturing using CNC-assisted material extrusion-based additive manufacturing: issues and challenges

Additive Manufacturing (AM), commonly known as 3D printing, is transforming the manufacturing industry with rapid product development. With the new technological transformation comes new issues and challenges in the manufacturing industry. Additive manufacturing technique with large build volume is costlier compared to smaller ones. Therefore, CNC-assisted material extrusion-based additive manufacturing system has been developed by the FFF laboratory in PDPM IIITDM Jabalpur using an existing Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. Using the developed system, large-sized parts can be easily fabricated on the CNC machine platform. The developed system requires setting up new process parameters values to fabricate large-sized parts compared to fused filament fabrication process system. However, the developed system also generates new possibilities such as composite material product development for various industries. Most of the constraints of fused filament fabrication process parameters still apply to this system. Beyond those constraints, new issues and challenges exist because the CNC-assisted material extrusion-based additive manufacturing system significantly changes the properties associated with the fused filament fabrication process. The research article presents the working of the developed system and issues associated with the fabricated parts. The capabilities and challenges in the fabrication of large-sized parts using the developed AM system are also presented.

Automated summary

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, is transforming the manufacturing industry with rapid product development. However, the cost and challenges of manufacturing large-sized parts using this technology are significant. A CNC-assisted material extrusion-based additive manufacturing system has been developed to address these issues, allowing for the fabrication of large-sized parts on a CNC machine platform. However, this system also introduces new issues and challenges, such as the need for new process parameters and changes to the properties associated with the fused filament fabrication process.