Design of 3D printing feeding system and extrusion system based on fused deposition modeling (FDM) technology with multiple material inlet and granule as raw material

Abstract

Mostly filamentous thermoplastic materials processed from granular thermoplastic materials are used by FDM 3D printers, which has high material cost, and it is difficult to reach uniform mixing due to the filamentary geometry of the material itself, so Multicolor FDM 3D printing technology has been limited,and it is difficult to realize Multi-color mixed printing. For the above questions, according to the traditional extrusion technology combined with the characteristics of fused deposition modeling(FDM) technology, the granular FDM 3D printing equipment feeding and extrusion system is designed, the granular plastics as raw material is directly selected, and multiple inlets, storage bins and exhaust screw are designed, the material is controlled by the hole-drilling. the reasonable ratio of different colors and different feed rate of granular plastic can be realized by the design result. The exhaust screw related to fully melt, pressurize, homogenize, vent, re-homogenize and extrude the granular plastic is designed. The 3D printing process of homogeneous material and the Multi-color mixed color printing process are realized. The design proposed in the paper can be directly used for 3D printing by using granule, which not only reduces the material production cost and cycle, but also realizes the effective utilization of waste materials, providing a reference basis for the development of 3D printing technology.

Keywords

• plastic processing technology and equipment
• material molding
• fused deposition modeling
• granulated plastic
• multiple material inlet
• screw