Predicting geometric errors and failures in additive manufacturing
ISSN: 1355-2546
Article publication date: 21 June 2023
Issue publication date: 18 October 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Objects fabricated using additive manufacturing (AM) technologies often suffer from dimensional accuracy issues and other part-specific problems. This study aims to present a framework for estimating the printability of a computer-aided design (CAD) model that expresses the probability that the model is fabricated correctly via an AM technology for a specific application.
Design/methodology/approach
This study predicts the dimensional deviations of the manufactured object per vertex and per part using a machine learning approach. The input to the error prediction artificial neural network (ANN) is per vertex information extracted from the mesh of the model to be manufactured. The output of the ANN is the estimated average per vertex error for the fabricated object. This error is then used along with other global and per part information in a framework for estimating the printability of the model, that is, the probability of being fabricated correctly on a certain AM technology, for a specific application domain.
Findings
A thorough experimental evaluation was conducted on binder jetting technology for both the error prediction approach and the printability estimation framework.
Originality/value
This study presents a method for predicting dimensional errors with high accuracy and a completely novel approach for estimating the probability of a CAD model to be fabricated without significant failures or errors that make it inappropriate for a specific application.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This research has been co-financed by the European Union and Greek national funds through the operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH–CREATE–INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK04928).
In the interest of transparency, data sharing and reproducibility, the author(s) of this article have made the data underlying their research openly available. It can be accessed by following the links https://github.com/spirosmos/PrintabilityTool and https://github.com/spirosmos/ANN_c2c_error_prediction.
Citation
Ntousia, M., Fudos, I., Moschopoulos, S. and Stamati, V. (2023), "Predicting geometric errors and failures in additive manufacturing", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 29 No. 9, pp. 1843-1861. https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-11-2022-0402
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited