Representation of surface roughness in fused deposition modeling

Most rapid prototyping (RP) technologies apply a layered manufacturing (LM) process to efficiently fabricate 3D physical models. However, a critical drawback that reduces the Surface quality of the RP parts occurs by utilizing LM. Hence, topics related to surface roughness have been a key issue in RP In this paper, a new approach to model surface roughness in fused deposition modeling (FDM) is proposed. Based on actual surface roughness distributions of FDM parts, a theoretical model to express surface roughness distribution according to changes in surface angle is presented by considering the main factors that crucially affect surface quality. The proposed expression is verified by implementation and comparison with empirical data. Also, the effectiveness of the main factors is analyzed and discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.