Experimental Setup for Ultrasonic-Assisted Desktop Fused Deposition Modeling System

Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) process that has been used in various manufacturing fields. However, the drawback of FDM is poor surface finish of part produced, leading to surface roughness and requires hand finishing. In this study, ultrasonic technology will be integrated into a desktop FDM system. Ultrasound has been applied in various conventional machining process and shows good machined surface finish. However, very little research regarding the application of ultrasound to AM has been carried out. Our previous research found that the extrusion nozzle of the FDM system could withstand the high vibration transmitted at 40 kHz of frequency from an ultrasonic transducer. The aim of this paper is to discusses three novel setups of using ultrasound devices attached to a desktop FDM system to study its feasibility to improve the surface finish of parts produced. A comparative study was made and it was found that the second setup (Concept 2) was most suitable due to its safe and reliability aspects.