A skeleton-based process planning framework for support-free 3+2-axis printing of multi-branch freeform parts
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A skeleton-based process planning framework for support-free 3+2-axis printing of multi-branch freeform parts Xiangyu Wang 1 & Lufeng Chen 1 & Tak-Yu Lau 1 & Kai Tang 1 Received: 12 March 2020 / Accepted: 17 July 2020 # Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Continuous 3+2-axis additive manufacturing (AM) is an emerging AM technology that overcomes the signature problems of the need of support structures and the staircase effect of the traditional 3-axis AM. This paper presents a novel process planning framework for automatically generating a multi-axis support-free printing path for continuous 3+2-axis AM of an arbitrary freeform part. The framework is based on the geometric processing of skeletonization and decomposition and is particularly suitable for a part with distinct multiple trunk-branch structures. The physical printing experimental results carried out by the authors indicate that the proposed framework has performed well and fabricated some challenging models with large overhangs and twisty spatial topologies. Keywords Skeletonization . Mesh partition . Multi-axis additive manufacturing . Support-free
1 Introduction Additive manufacturing (AM) technology, also called threedimensional (3D) printing, has undergone tremendous development and achieved far-reaching applications since its inception of modern shape in the 1980s [1]. At the very beginning, this technique was invented as a prototyping process known as stereolithography (SLA), which was followed by subsequent advancements, including the most ubiquitous type—the fused deposition modeling (FDM). For most commercial FDM printing systems, the mechanism of nozzle movement is still of three-axis type (also referred to as 2.5D printing), which follows a linear movement to dispense materials layer-by-layer on an immobile hotbed of
* Kai Tang [email protected] Xiangyu Wang [email protected] Lufeng Chen [email protected] Tak-Yu Lau [email protected] 1
School of Automation Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, No. 2006, Xiyuan Ave., West High-tech Zone, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
x-y axis by taking the z-axis as the fixed building direction, as illustrated in Fig. 1(b). This conventional configuration is simple in both hardware and software (i.e., the algorithm to plan the nozzle movement). However, when restricted in this configuration, for a design model with a multi-branch structure as illustrated in Fig. 1(a), the printed part suffers in two major aspects—the extensive support structure needed and the staircase effect, which obviously cause a vast waste of both material and printing time, as well as the degraded finish-surface quality. Although great endeavor has been taken by researchers to reduce the support material through topology optimization [2, 3] and orientation optimization [4], as well as the staircase effect [5], as illustrated in Fig. 1(b), the technical bottleneck of 2.5D printing nonetheless remains. Enlightened by the now popular five-axis numeri
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