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A three-dimensional (3D) printing error simulation approach is proposed to analyze the influence of tilted vertical beams on the 3D printing accuracy. The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of such errors on printing accuracy and printing quality for delta-robot 3D printer.

First, the kinematic model of a delta-robot 3D printer with an ideal geometric structure is proposed by using vector analysis. Then, the normal kinematic model of a nonideal delta-robot 3D robot with tilted vertical beams is derived based on the above ideal kinematic model. Finally, a 3D printing error simulation approach is proposed to analyze the influence of tilted vertical beams on the 3D printing accuracy.

The results show that tilted vertical beams can indeed cause 3D printing errors and further influence the 3D printing quality of the final products and that the 3D printing errors of tilted vertical beams are related to the rotation angles of the tilted vertical beams. The larger the rotation angles of the tilted vertical beams are, the greater the geometric deformations of the printed structures.

Three vertical beams and six horizontal beams constitute the supporting parts of the frame of a delta-robot 3D printer. In this paper, the orientations of tilted vertical beams are shown to have a significant influence on 3D printing accuracy. However, the effect of tilted vertical beams on 3D printing accuracy is difficult to capture by instruments. To reveal the 3D printing error mechanisms under the condition of tilted vertical beams, the error generation mechanism and the quantitative influence of tilted vertical beams on 3D printing accuracy are studied by simulating the parallel motion mechanism of a delta-robot 3D printer with tilted vertical beams.

The purpose of this paper is to study the feasibility of the fabrication of circle arc curved-layered structures via conventional fused deposition modeling (FDM) with three-axis machines and to identify the main structural parameters that have an influence on their mechanical properties.

Customized G-codes were generated via a script developed in MATLAB. The G-codes contain nozzle trajectories with displacements in the three axes simultaneously. Using these, the samples were fabricated with different porosities, and their influence on the mechanical responses evaluated via tensile testing. The load-displacement curves were analyzed to understand the structure-property relationship.

Circled arc curved-layered structures were successfully fabricated with conventional three-axis FDM machines. The response of these curved lattice structures under tensile loads was mapped to three main stages and deformation mechanisms, namely, straightening, stretching and fracture. The micro-structure formed by the transverse filaments affect the first stage significantly and the other two minimally. The main parameters that affect the structural response were found to be the transverse filaments, as these could behave as hinges, allowing the slide/rotation of adjacent layers and making the structure more shear sensitive.

This paper was restricted to arc-curved samples fabricated with conventional three-axis FDM machines.

The FDM fabrication of curved-structures with controlled porosity and their relation to the resulting mechanical properties is presented here for the first time. The study of curved-lattice structures is of great relevance in various areas, such as biomedical, architecture and aerospace.

In this paper, the authors aim to address the potential of mass personalization for ceramic tableware objects. They argue that additive manufacturing (AM) is the most adequate approach to the production of such objects.

The authors review the manufacturing of ceramic tableware objects, both traditional techniques and AM processes, and assess which available AM technologies are suitable for the research purpose.

The authors consider binder jetting and material extrusion as the most suitable processes for the production of ceramic objects to be integrated into a mass personalization system of ceramic tableware.

This paper provides an original overview of traditional and innovative techniques in ceramic manufacturing, exposing not only its differences but also its commonalities. Such overview supports the conceptual design of original equipment.

The purpose of this study is to propose an automatic leveling method for a printing platform based on a three-point coordinate feedback. The proposed method is used in fused deposition modeling additive manufacturing systems. The coordinate error of the leveled plane is constrained to within  ± 0.2 mm, which is less than the printed layer thickness.

First, the model of the forward and inverse solutions of the parallel arm is obtained based on the principles of vector algebra. Second, the automatic leveling mechanism for collecting the z-coordinate is designed. The best position of the virtual origin plane is obtained by comparing the z-coordinates of the test points. Finally, after making multiple adjustments through a closed-loop z-coordinate feedback, the parallelism of the printing plane and the virtual origin plane is limited to an effective range.

The experimental results show that after three leveling attempts, the z-coordinate of the test points can be constrained to within  ± 0.2 mm, which shows that this method can effectively achieve automatic leveling in a delta three-dimensional (3D) printer.

This study presents a novel and distinctive delta 3D printer leveling system by designing a leveling mechanism and a leveling algorithm. The method uses a closed-loop feedback mode to make the leveling process simple, convenient and efficient without requiring major changes to the printer. The error after leveling is less than the printed layer thickness, which fully guarantees the accuracy of the leveling process.

This paper aims to provide an approach to print shell-type objects using a 5-axis printer. The proposed approach takes advantage of the two additional printer degrees of freedom to provide a curved layer path planning strategy.

This paper addresses curved layer path planning on a 5-axis printer. This printer considers movements along the three usual axes together with two additional axes at the printing table (rotation and tilt), allowing to build more complex and reliable objects. Curved layer path planning is considered where polygons obtained from the slicing stage are approximated by linear and cubic splines. The proposed printing strategy consists in building an inner core supporting structure followed by outer curved layers.

The curved layer path planning strategy is validated for shell-type objects by considering a 5-axis printer simulator. An example with an aeronautic object is presented to illustrate the proposed approach.

The paper presents an approach to curved layer path planning on a 5-axis printer, for shell-type objects.

Additive manufacturing of concrete (AMoC) is an emerging technology for constructing buildings. However, due to the nature of the concrete property and constructing buildings in layers, constraints and limitations are encountered while applying AMoC in architecture. This paper aims to analyze the constraints and limitations that may be encountered while using AMoC in architecture.

A descriptive research approach is used to conduct this study. First, basic notions of AMoC are introduced. Then, challenges of AMoC, including hardware, material property, control and design, are addressed. Finally, strategies that may be used to overcome the challenges are discussed.

Factors influencing the success of AMoC include hardware, material, control methods, manufacturing process and design. Considering these issues in the early design phase is crucial to achieving a successful computer-aided design (CAD)/computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) integration to bring CAD and CAM benefits into the architecture industry.

In three-dimensional (3D) printing, objects are constructed layer by layer. Printing results are thus affected by the additive method (such as toolpath) and material properties (such as tensile strength and slump). Although previous studies attempt to improve AMoC, most of them focus on the manufacturing process. However, a successful application of AMoC in architecture needs to consider the possible constraints and limitations of concrete 3D printing. So far, research on the potential challenges of applying AMoC in architecture from a building lifecycle perspective is still limited. The study results of this study could be used to improve design and construction while applying AMoC in architecture.

While additive manufacturing via melt-extrusion of plastics has been around for more than several decades, its application to complex geometries has been hampered by the discretization of parts into planar layers. This requires wasted support material and introduces anisotropic weaknesses due to poor layer-to-layer adhesion. Curved-layer manufacturing has been gaining attention recently, with increasing potential to fabricate complex, low-weight structures, such as mechanical metamaterials. This paper aims to study the fabrication and mechanical characterization of non-planar lattice structures under cyclic loading.

A mathematical approach to parametrize lattices onto Bèzier surfaces is validated and applied here to fabricate non-planar lattice samples via curved-layer fused deposition modeling. The lattice chirality, amplitude and unit cell size were varied, and the properties of the samples under cyclic-loading were studied experimentally.

Overall, lattices with higher auxeticity showed less energy dissipation, attributed to their bending-deformation mechanism. Additionally, bistability was eliminated with increasing auxeticity, reinforcing the conclusion of bending-dominated behavior. The analysis presented here demonstrates that mechanical metamaterial lattices such as auxetics can be explored experimentally for complex geometries where traditional methods of comparing simple geometry to end-use designs are not applicable.

The mechanics of non-planar lattice structures fabricated using curved-layer additive manufacturing have not been studied thoroughly. Furthermore, traditional approaches do not apply due to parameterization deformations, requiring novel approaches to their study. Here the properties of such structures under cyclic-loading are studied experimentally for the first time. Applications for this type of structures can be found in areas like biomedical scaffolds and stents, sandwich-panel packaging, aerospace structures and architecture of lattice domes.

This work presents an experimental approach to study the mechanical properties of non-planar lattice structures via quasi-static cyclic loading, comparing variations across several lattice patterns including auxetic sinusoids, disrupted sinusoids and their equivalent-density quadratic patterns.

Powder bed additive manufacturing processes are widespread due to their many technical and economic advantages. Nevertheless, the disposal of leftover powder poses a problem in terms of process sustainability. The purpose of this paper is to provide an alternative solution to recycle waste PA12 powder from HP multi jet fusion. In particular, the opportunity to use this material as a dispersion in three-dimensional (3D) printed clay is investigated.

A commercial fused deposition modelling printer was re-adapted to extrude a viscous paste composed of clay, PA12 and water. Once printed, parts were dried and then put in an oven to melt the polymer fraction. Four compositions with different PA12 concentration were studied. First, the extrudability of the paste was observed by testing different extrusion lengths. Then, the surface porosities were evaluated through microscopical observations of the manufactured parts. Finally, benchmarks with different geometries were digitalised via 3D scanning to analyse the dimensional alterations arising at each stage of the process.

Overall, the feasibility of the process is demonstrated. Extrusion tests revealed that the composition of the paste has a minor influence on the volumetric flow rate, exhibiting a better consistency in the case of long extrusions. The percentage of surface cavities was proportional to the polymer fraction contained in the mix. From dimensional analyses, it was possible to conclude that PA12 reduced the degree of shrinkage during the drying phase, while it increased dimensional alterations occurring in the melting phase. The results showed that the dimensional error measured on the z-axis was always higher than that of the XY plane.

The method proposed in this paper provides an alternative approach to reuse leftover powders from powder bed fusion processes via another additive manufacturing process. This offers an affordable and open-source solution to companies dealing with polymer powder bed fusion, allowing them to reduce their environmental impacts while expanding their production.

The paper presents an innovative additive manufacturing solution for powder reuse. Unlike the recycling methods in the body of literature, this solution does not require any intermediate transformation process, such as filament fabrication. Also, the cold material deposition enables the adoption of very inexpensive extrusion equipment. This preliminary study demonstrates the feasibility and the benefits of this process, paving the way for numerous future studies.

The purpose of this paper is to present a vision-based method for the kinematic calibration of a six-degrees-of-freedom parallel robot named Hexa using only one Universal Serial Bus (USB) camera and a chess pattern installed on the robot's mobile platform. Such an approach avoids using any internal sensors or complex three-dimensional measurement systems to obtain the pose (position/orientation) of the robot's end-effector or the joint coordinates.

The setup of the proposed method is very simple; only one USB camera connected to a laptop computer is needed and no contact with the robot is necessary during the calibration procedure. For camera modeling, a pinhole model is used; it is then modified by considering some distortion coefficients. Intrinsic and extrinsic parameters and the distortion coefficients are found by an offline minimization algorithm. The chess pattern makes image corner detection very straightforward; this detection leads to finding the camera and then the kinematic parameters. To carry out the calibration procedure, several trajectories are run (the results of two of them are presented here) and sufficient specifications of the poses (positions/orientations) are calculated to find the kinematic parameters of the robot. Experimental results obtained when applying the calibration procedure on a Hexa parallel robot show that vision-based kinematic calibration yields enhanced and efficient positioning accuracy. After successful calibration and addition of an appropriate control scheme, the robot has been considered as a color-painting prototype robot to serve in relevant industries.

Experimental results obtained when applying the calibration procedure on a Hexa parallel robot show that vision-based kinematic calibration yields enhanced and efficient positioning accuracy.

The enhanced results show the advantages of this method in comparison with the previous calibration methods.