Meso-structural Mesh Generation for Toolpath-based Modelling of Fused Filament Fabrication Parts

Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) is considered as a cost-effective additive manufacturing method due to its simple concept compared to the other additive manufacturing methods. Based on the economic benefits, there has been growing number of studies for developing the industrial application of the FFF process to produce functional parts. However, the complex anisotropic behavior and lower mechanical properties in build-up direction are still the main obstacles to its wider application in this field. Taking into consideration that the toolpath of the printing process represents the main reason for the anisotropy, the aim of this work is developing a tool to generate a meshed meso-structure model of the component based on the toolpath. The model will be created without using CAD environment and can be used to conduct structural simulations in a finite element software. For the validation purpose, four group of different specimens have been experimentally tested and simulated. The comparison resulted in a very good correlation for the specimens with [0 degrees/90 degrees] infill orientation. The specimens with [45 degrees/-45 degrees] infill orientations have shown less accurate results, especially regarding the ultimate strength when less infill density was used.