Extrusion control for high quality printing on Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) systems

Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) is a large format additive manufacturing (AM) process. The size scale has enabled many new applications for AM. However, at this scale, lack of high print resolution and extruder flowrate control lead to potentially significant geometric deviations in the printed part. This paper examines strategies to improve geometric quality in BAAM parts. Multi-resolution printing, extrusion diversion, and feedforward extruder control are examined herein. These methods were all found to be effective in mitigating phenomena detrimental to geometric part quality on the BAAM process.