Evaluation of dimensional accuracy and surface topography of plastic parts

Abstract

The objective of this paper is the evaluation of dimensional and geometric accuracy and surface topography of milled parts from plastic. This evaluation was done on 10 samples from various thermoplastics made by extrusion and FDM 3D printing. The samples were then milled. One side was milled dry the other was milled with cutting fluid, which has improved the texture of the resulting machined surfaces in most cases, for example with printed PIA, where Ra was reduced by 1.8 mu m. For determining dimensional and geometric accuracy, two parameters were chosen, those being distance and parallelism. For evaluating the surface topography, 4 parameters were measured using 2D profile roughness and surface texture. The surface of the prints was greatly improved by machining. The paper ends with practical recommendations for choosing different plastic materials for applications, requiring high dimensional accuracy and low surface roughness.