Intelligent toolpath for extrusion‐based LM process

Abstract

To fabricate high quality parts, and to make the development generic yet compatible with the in‐house hardware, a virtual simulation system has been developed, and an in‐house intelligent multi‐material toolpath generation system has been under development. This new development includes the issues such as multiple fill‐toolpaths for the same material, interface mismatch between adjacent materials and the intelligent toolpath features for machine control. After the multi‐material toolpath file generated by the in‐house software, the existing virtual graphical simulation as well as well selected part fabrication experiments were used to validate it. Based on the authors’ ongoing research about multi‐material layered manufacturing, it was determined that the build characteristic was heavily dependent on the material being used. Therefore, it was important to develop the hardware/software that will accommodate this requirement.

Citation

Qiu, D., Langrana, N.A., Danforth, S.C., Safari, A. and Jafari, M. (2001), "Intelligent toolpath for extrusion‐based LM process", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 7 No. 1, pp. 18-24. https://doi.org/10.1108/13552540110365126