Title: Phantom holes: optimised internal structural design for use with additive manufacturing, typical fused filament fabrication systems

Authors: Eric N. Wooldridge

Addresses: Somerset Community College, 808 Monticello St., Somerset, KY 42501, USA

Abstract: It is understood that additive manufacturing (AM) allows the designer to control the exterior shape and internal structure for the design and fabrication of products. However, although AM allows for some internal structural control, how the designer controls that internal structure is limited to the options of the slicing software and the equipment. The designer does not have options within current slicer software to create customised shapes of concentrated material within the internal structure. Designers have to increase the infill throughout the entire object to address a limited area material failure zone. This paper introduces a methodology known as the phantom hole (PH) technique that will allow designers to create custom shaped, solid, internal structures within objects fabricated by many fused filament fabrication (FFF) machines. In initial shear and flexural testing, the PH technique resulted in a 39% improvement in specimen loading performance over specimens fabricated with higher infill percentages.

Keywords: additive manufacturing; 3D printing; phantom holes; internal structure; topology; infill.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAPIDM.2020.107732

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing, 2020 Vol.9 No.2/3, pp.137 - 166

Received: 25 Aug 2018
Accepted: 07 Nov 2018
Published online: 11 Jun 2020 *

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