Buckling Strength of 3-D Printed Thermoplastic Thin Shells: Notes on an Exploratory Study of As-Printed and Reinforced Cases

Texture Modification of 3D-Printed Maltitol Candy by Changing Internal Design

The purpose of this study is to show more diverse texture modifications by changing the material of a food 3D-printed structure conducted only with soft materials (in this case, potatoes and chocolate) to a hard material (in this case, maltitol here). However, unlike previous 3D-printed food materials, sweetener materials such as sucrose and maltitol are sensitively caramelized at a high melting temperature. As such, there is no commercialized printing equipment. Therefore, a printing process experiment was conducted first in this case. To do this, a high-temperature syringe pump-based extrusion device was designed, and process tests according to the temperature and environment were conducted. An assessment of the internal structural changes according to the infill patterns and infill percentages was conducted based on the acquired process conditions. The texture strength increased as the infill percentage increased. Depending on the infill patterns, the texture strength increased in the order of the Hilbert curve, honeycomb, and rectilinear samples here. As a result, a change in the texture strength was determined through a change in the internal structure of a hard food material using 3D printing, which showed a wider range of change than in conventional soft food materials.

Identification and Mapping of Manufacturability Constraints for Extrusion-Based Additive Manufacturing

This article develops and demonstrates a set of design-focused manufacturability constraints for the fused deposition modeling/fused filament fabrication (FDM/FFF) process. These can be mapped from the basic behavior and process characteristics and formulated in terms of implicit or explicit design constraints. When the FDM/FFF process is explored and examined for its natural limitations and behavior, it can provide a set of manufacturing considerations (advantages, limitations, and best practices). These can be converted into manufacturing constraints, which are practical limits on the ability of the process. Finally, these can be formulated in terms of design–useful manufacturability constraints. Many of the constants and parameters must be determined experimentally for specific materials. The final list of 54 major manufacturability constraints presented in this work will better inform designers considering using FDM/FFF as a manufacturing process, and help guide design decisions. After derivation and presentation of the constraint set, extensive discussion about practical implementation is provided at the end of the paper, including advice about experimentally determining constants and appropriate printing parameters. Finally, three case studies are presented which implement the constraints for simple design problems.