Research on 3D printed fixture components

Abstract

Fixtures are used for orientation, positioning and tightening of the workpiece during machining, control and assembly. The main fixture requirements are: orientation, positioning and tightening precision in accordance with the machining requirements. The materials used for fixture components, especially, supports and clamping mechanism are, usually, alloy steel with HRC hardness up to 55-60 HRC. These components are machined to high level of precision thus assuring the overall precision of the fixture. In order to achieve high stiffness and a good dampening capacity the fixture become, usually, very heavy. In the case of manually operated fixtures light weight is an advantage; also there are operations such as inspection, assembly where the operating forces are low. In this case lightweight materials can be used for fixture construction. In this paper the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printing technology is used. Support buttons and v-block fixture components were selected and 3D printed. The effect of printing orientation of active surfaces of support was analysed. The dimensional accuracy and surface roughness on the active surface were measured. Experimental results indicate that surface roughness is dependent on the orientation of the printed workpiece.