An Approach towards Economized 3D Printing

The growing demand for advanced manufacturing processes calls for reduction in manufacturing cost and manufacturing time. Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is one of the rapidly developing rapid Prototyping (RP) process. In this work an effort has made to make FDM process cost effective by replacing solid model with shelled model in-filled with user-defined parametric cellular structures. This approach helps in keeping a balance between material usages, build time and mechanical properties. The proposed method is implemented on a few specimens and results signify that 20-30% expensive build material as well as build time can be saved by this approach. The whole algorithm is based on .STL format, and is coded in MATLAB providing a versatile and widely acceptable platform.