Fused filament fabrication: A comprehensive review
Sudhir Kumar, Rupinder Singh, TP Singh, Ajay Batish
Abstract
Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is one of the low cost additive manufacturing (AM) techniques capable of printing complex design (both with commercial and non-commercial feedstock filaments by using different processing parameters). In this paper a comprehensive review has been prepared on FFF operating capabilities from thermoplastics material’s view point. Various thermoplastic materials and composites available commercially and prepared at laboratory scale have been categorized based upon the reported studies performed (for thermal stability, mechanical properties etc.). It was observed that the nano composite based feed stock filament (prepared at lab scale) have edge over the micro-composites from thermo-mechanical properties view point. Further it has been noticed that the 3D printing is in changing phase and moving towards 4D printing of smart composites and designs. But hitherto little has been reported on printing of smart material with FFF platform. Further studies may be focused on printing of smart materials (both micro and nano composites) with FFF, as the low cost 3D printing solution in different engineering applications.