A NEW SUPPORT STRATEGY FOR REDUCING WASTE IN ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

摘要

In additive manufacturing, fused filament fabrication (FFF) printers are widely used because of their low cost and simplicity. However, such printers still suffer from redundant support material waste when printing objects with overhangs, holes or edge features. In this paper, a new support strategy considering printable threshold overhang angle (PTOA) and the longest printable bridge length (LPBL) is proposed. Based on this, the to-be-supported regions will have the least contact area and support waste. The characteristics of LPBL and PTOA are fully considered for saving more material. A T-shape part is used to verify the proposed strategy and the results show that this support strategy can considerably reduce material waste compared with conventional strategies, enabling AM to be a more environmentally friendly and sustainable manufacturing technique.