Effect of 3D Printing Parameters on Dimensional Accuracy Using eSteel Filaments

Abstract

3D printing technology or additive manufacturing is manufacturing by adding materials to objects until it is shaped as expected. This technique is easy and cheap for printing pol-ymer-based materials in the form of filament. Recently, some metal-containing filament has been introduced in the market, one of which is eSteel composed of 45% wt. steel and 55% wt. PLA. Due to its premature introduction, it is a minimal published paper discussing its mechanical properties and dimensional accuracy. This research aims to analyze the dimensional accuracy of 3D printed products of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) technique using eSteel filament. Taguchi method was used to design the experiments with orthogonal array L4 (23). There were three control parameters with two levels each, namely extruder temperature (220°C, 225°C), layer height (0.3 mm, 0.4 mm), and raster angle (0°/90°, 45°/45°). These parameters were selected based on initial trials. The specimens are in the form of an ASTM D790 flexural test with five replications in each combination. HE3D K200 3D printing machine was used for printing the filament. Analysis of variance indicated that raster angle has the most influence on dimensional accuracy by 32.09%, followed by extruder temperature with a contribution of 31.72% and layer height by 25.53%. The combination of control parameters to produce optimal dimensional accuracy was obtained when combining parameters: extruder temperature of 220°C, layer height of 0.3 mm, and raster angle of 0°/90°.