A Novel Infill Strategy to Approach Non-Planar 3D-printing in 6-Axis Robotized FDM

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a class of processes with a remarkable growth and evolution during the last years. Those allow to fabricate components deposing a great variety of raw materials with a layer by layer approach. Conventional material deposition strategy is identified by the slicing process layering the 3D component with planes. Although convention slicing enables common Cartesian 3D-printers, is constraining the fabrication of near-net shape components featuring overhangs and particularly to free-form geometries without the use of dedicated supports. Conventional slicing is also limiting industrial 6-axis robots which are more flexible, providing larger working area and introducing more degrees of freedom than Cartesian 3D-printers. Non-planar slicing unlocks such features changing deposition direction according to multi-directional surface. On the other hand, non-planar slicing generalization is a challenging problem due to its own intrinsic complexity. Hence, the goal to achieve a flexible non-planar slicer software is still not reached. This work considers a quarter of torus as representative of a free-form part which only the external surface is known analytically. The aim of this work is to provide a new method to define a non-planar infill to fabricate filled-solid parts starting from the data on the contour. It is a first and preparatory step of problem generalization. An experimental activity is pursued showing the non-planar infill strategy introduced. The printed results are discussed and evaluated, underlining the capabilities of the proposed solution.