Process capability and mechanical properties of FDM in micro manufacturing

The demand for polymeric micro-components is increasing for applications in several industrial fields. Fused deposition modelling (FDM) is a consolidated rapid prototyping technology growing rapidly as industrial additive manufacturing technology due to its ability to build cheap and functional parts with complex geometry. In this study, several dog-bone miniaturized specimens in PLA were prepared by FDM and the relationships among the processing conditions and the mechanical properties were investigated. An ANOVA allowed to identify the influence of the FDM parameters on the part dimensional and geometrical accuracy. Since in micro FDM manufacturing the parameter setting is not sufficient to assure the final quality of the product, the part 3D solid model was modified to compensate both dimensional and geometrical errors. Finally, the miniaturized specimens were fabricated by micro-injection moulding (µIM) and their mechanical properties compared with those obtained using FDM.