The accuracy of manufactured parts holds paramount importance in product assembly. Among various additive manufacturing (AM) techniques, fused deposition modeling (FDM) stands out for its emphasis on accuracy, surface quality, and precision. Hitherto, some investigations have been conducted on dimensional accuracy which are limited to few geometrical shapes and remains inadequately explored. This study adopts an experimental approach to investigate the influence of FDM printing parameters including build orientation (BO), layer thickness (LT), and infill density (ID) on the dimensional accuracy of ABS polymer printed benchmark. Taguchi’s L9 orthogonal array is utilized to assess the correlation between the chosen FDM process parameters and the obtained responses. Measurements of deviations of the printed parts are conducted using a vision measuring machine (VMM) and analyzed employing the ‘nominal-is-the-best’ method. In this study, the most influencing parameter is changing as the geometrical shapes vary. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) is performed to examine the adequacy of the model, considering p-values less than 0.05 at 95% confidence level. The model is found adequate for all the dimensions of the benchmark. The study concludes that the parameter setting will vary with the changes in features. This study will pave the way in selecting the process parameters to get the desired dimensional accuracy for improving the quality of critical applications like prototyping and functional end-use manufacturing.

Orthopaedic regenerative medicine is the latest trend in biomedical sector. Designing of bone scaffolds and implants is a challenging step followed by its fabrication and surgical implantation. Lattice structure based designs are desirable candidates for healing or replacing the damaged bones, as they provide larger surface area for osseo-integration. Additive manufacturing has the potential to fabricate these complex lattice structures. In this work SolidWorks 2016 CAD software is used for modeling the hollow cubical lattice structure which are then scaled while maintaining the same overall size and volume. After designing Finite Element Analysis (FEA) is performed to investigate the compressive behavior of the lattice structures using the Abaqus 6.14 FEA package. The compressive modulus of porous scaffolds for stainless steel and Ti-6Al-4V are calculated and compared with that of a compact bone.

Design of porous scaffolds is a critical issue in orthopaedic applications. Porous biomaterial scaffolds are suitable for repairing the damaged bones. They promote proliferation and osseointegration of bone tissues. To fabricate the porous scaffolds, Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques have been widely used. Modeling and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) allows investigating the mechanical and biological behaviour of patient specific implants at reduced cost. In this study, modeling of Hollow Cube and Truncated Hexahedron (ThH) unit cells has been done using the SolidWorks 2016 CAD software and FEA of their compressive strength has been done using the Abaqus 6.14 FEA package. The compressive strength of various structures based on these two unit cells have been analyzed for different strut size for the biocompatible grade 5 titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V). Compressive strength of 162 MPa for THH 2 for strut size of 0.5 found to be in desirable range of cortical bone.