An experiment on thermal deformation of fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printed PLA thin flat piece to doubly curved surface

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) is a widely adopted 3d printing technology for rapid prototyping and manufacturing in recent years due to its high flexibility in printing and cost-effectiveness [1]. Polylactic acid (PLA) is a popular material for low-cost 3D printing owing to its low cost, low glass transition temperature, good mechanical properties and environmentally friendly [2]. During FFF 3D printing, thermoplastic filament is extruded onto a printing platform layer by layer to fabricate the 3D object. While printing, additional structures called “supports” have to be printed to support overhanging parts to be printed in higher layers, without which these overhanging parts of the object may collapse, leading to failure in printing. In a recent project on creating mechanical flowers, we have the need to fabricate petal with thin curved surface having perforated patterns for decorative purposes. However, due to the intricate details of the curved surface, printing these petals with FFF technique requires a lot of “supports” which leads to substantial amount of materials wastage and increased printing time, and more importantly failure in printing. In this paper, we will report our experience on an approach for applying thermal deformation on FFF 3D printed PLA thin flat piece for fabrication of curved surface with intricate details, and discuss issues to be considered when applying the approach as well as potential for further research. In Section 2, we will describe the design of the curved surface and illustrate issues in printing with FFF technique. In Section 3, we will describe our experiment on thermally deforming a 3D printed PLA thin flat piece to form the curved surface and its results. As the curved surface we create is non-developable, deforming from a flat piece will involve stretching/compressing of the 3D printed PLA thin flat piece. In Section 4, we will discuss implications of our experiment and directions for further research.