Enhancing the Efficiency of Removing Support Material from Rapid Prototype Parts using pH Value Compensation Technology

Abstract

Removing support material from rapid prototyping (RP) parts fabricated by fused deposition modeling (FDM) is required. Removing the support material rapidly and efficiently is an important concern because the product life cycle is shorter than before. The measurement of pH value in solution is an important issue affecting the efficiency of removing support material. In this work, a method was proposed to enhance the efficiency of removing support material from rapid prototype parts using pH value compensation technology. It is found that the pH value11.6 is a good candidate for compensating the solution during removing process. The efficiency of removing support material increases with increasing the times of compensation. The savings in the removing time is up to 72% using pH value compensation technology.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ms.21.2.6523

Keywords

• support material, fused deposition modelling, solution, pH, compensation