TY - JOUR
T1 - A comparative analysis of chemical, thermal, and mechanical post-process of fused filament fabricated polyetherimide parts for surface quality enhancement
AU - de Bruijn, Ariadna Chueca
AU - Gómez-Gras, Giovanni
AU - Pérez, Marco A.
N1 - Funding Information:
Funding: This work has been supported by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities through the project New Developments in Lightweight Composite Sandwich Panels with 3D Printed Cores (3DPC)-RTI2018-099754-A-I00; and by the RIS3CAT Llavor 3D Community co-financed by the Generalitat de Catalunya (ACCIÓ) through the project TRANSPORT COMRDI16-1-0010 (2017–2020).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2021/10/1
Y1 - 2021/10/1
N2 - Additive manufacturing technologies are increasingly being used in production systems because they shorten product development time and production cost, but surface integrity remains a limitation to meet the standards set by conventional manufacturing. In this research article, two chemical, one thermal, and three mechanical finishing operations are proposed to post-process fused filament fabricated Ultem 9085 parts. Their effects on the parts’ surface quality and dimensional accuracy (changes in their width, height, length, and mass) are examined through optical and electron scanning microscopy, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. Microscope evaluation has proven to be a powerful tool to observe apparent differences and understand the nature of different morphological changes. Results indicate that chemical and thermal treatments and ball burnishing are good candidates to significantly enhance the finish of the parts, despite requiring the use of solvents or provoking dimensional changes to the parts. The effects of abrasive mechanical treatments are more moderate at a macroscopic scale, but the surface of the filaments suffers the most remarkable changes.
AB - Additive manufacturing technologies are increasingly being used in production systems because they shorten product development time and production cost, but surface integrity remains a limitation to meet the standards set by conventional manufacturing. In this research article, two chemical, one thermal, and three mechanical finishing operations are proposed to post-process fused filament fabricated Ultem 9085 parts. Their effects on the parts’ surface quality and dimensional accuracy (changes in their width, height, length, and mass) are examined through optical and electron scanning microscopy, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method are discussed. Microscope evaluation has proven to be a powerful tool to observe apparent differences and understand the nature of different morphological changes. Results indicate that chemical and thermal treatments and ball burnishing are good candidates to significantly enhance the finish of the parts, despite requiring the use of solvents or provoking dimensional changes to the parts. The effects of abrasive mechanical treatments are more moderate at a macroscopic scale, but the surface of the filaments suffers the most remarkable changes.
KW - Abrasive shot blasting
KW - Additive manufacturing
KW - Finishing operations
KW - Fused filament fabrication
KW - PEI Ultem 9085
KW - Postprocessing
KW - Shot peening
KW - Surface enhancement
KW - Thermal annealing
KW - Vapor smoothing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116987605&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=pure_univeritat_ramon_llull&SrcAuth=WosAPI&KeyUT=WOS:000710243500001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=WOS_CPL
UR - http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14342/4556
U2 - 10.3390/ma14195880
DO - 10.3390/ma14195880
M3 - Article
C2 - 34640277
AN - SCOPUS:85116987605
SN - 1996-1944
VL - 14
JO - Materials
JF - Materials
IS - 19
M1 - 5880
ER -