Abstract:
The field of Rapid Prototyping (RP) encompasses a wide variety of new methods, technologies and applications that has already stimulated some fascinating research in the past few decades. Among various RP techniques, 3D printing has become particularly popular in recent a year that enables fabrication of objects that find applications not only in engineering field but also in daily life. In this paper, a CAD drawing of a component is made in AutoCAD software and converted into STL file. Afterwards, Slicer software have been used to see the effect of triangulation on output file size and compare it for solid, hollow and fillet component. Effect of number of layers, layer thickness and orientation on printing time and cost have been studied for solid, hollow and fillet components. The study shows that when solid component converts into hollow there is a 67% increase in number of triangles and this increase is 600% when shape changes from hollow to fillet. This also increases the STL file size due to formation of shorter triangulation which provides better approximation. In the study, the effect of layer thickness and use of support material in fabricating the component on printing time and cost is determined. In addition, the optimum angle of orientation from x, y or z axis is also suggested in the study that require less support material resulting in reduced printing time and thereby offering low cost in fabrication of the part.
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