A study on the effect of print parameters on mechanical properties of parts manufactured using additive manufacturing

Abstract

This thesis presents an investigation on material-process interaction of vat-photopolymerization processes. The effect of different printing factors on tensile properties is studied. Two vat-photopolymerization processes are considered: Digital Light Processing (DLP) and Stereolithography (SLA). A comprehensive list of factors available on the slicing software and other factors, like the orientation of the part or its position, are investigated. To perform this study, Design of Experiments (DoE) is introduced by the use of Taguchi’s techniques. The relationship between each factor and the elastic modulus, ultimate tensile stress, and strain at break is obtained. Furthermore, the total print time is analyzed with respect to the obtained mechanical properties. The study indicates that part orientation, exposure time to the UV light and layer thickness are the most important factors affecting the investigated properties. The last section of this thesis highlights the main differences found between the studied processes.