Mohammad S. Alsoufi^1,, Mohammed W. Alhazmi¹, Dhia K. Suker¹, Turki A. Alghamdi¹, Rayan A. Sabbagh¹, Mohammed A. Felemban¹, Feras K. Bazuhair¹

This paper experimentally observed at a small level the influence of nozzle temperature change on warping deformation (WD), dimensional Accuracy (DA) and density. The materials chosen are pure PLA and advanced PLA+ specimens of rectangular shape of 63.5 mm × 9.53 mm × 3.2 mm produced by the end-user 3D printer based on fused deposition modeling (FDM). During the printing work, the nozzle temperature was conducted at twelve different values 195°C to 250°C with 5°C increments. Additionally, the infill density was set at 20% along with infill line direction of 0°, 90°, 45° and ±45°. After the fabrication, the FDM 3D printed parts naturally cooled down to room temperature at T = 23±2°C. As a result, the higher the nozzle temperature, the lower the deformed shape errors (with low uncertainty) of the specimens were. Experimental results show that the measured dimensions are always more than the original CAD file dimension along the height but less than the original CAD file dimensions along the width and length. The density measurements of both materials at 90° infill line direction have higher values compared with other directions (0°, 45°, ±45°), which have very similar results. The data and knowledge obtained from this investigation can be helpful for both an academic and an industrial perspective to set optimum nozzle temperature at small scale level and also it can be used to fabricate low-cost functional objects. Furthermore, it will also allow us to redesign the original CAD file in order to compensate the warping deformation encountered when using end-user FDM 3D additive manufacturing.

nozzle temperature, PLA, PLA+, FDM, dimensional accuracy, warping deformation