Analysis of the Effects of 3DP Parameters on Part Feature Dimensional Accuracy
Abstract
3D printing (3DP) is a widely investigated scaffold manufacturing process for Tissue
Engineering (TE). Useful scaffold geometries should have high porosity (60-80%) with small
(100-500 μm) interconnected pores. Therefore dimensional accuracy on the micron level is one
of the crucial parameters of the bone scaffolds. Previously it was shown that the behavior of
scaffold geometries can be well simulated with Finite Element Modeling (FEM) however the
prediction of actual strength and stiffness values are dependent on dimensional accuracy. This
accuracy is in turn dependent on several parameters including particle size and shape, powderbinder interaction, and machine setup. In this work different scaffold strut sizes (0.3 - 0.5 mm)
have been fabricated using two different plaster powders (zp102 and zp130) with variations in
shell saturation levels, part print position, and part print orientation. The parameters for each
powder were analyzed using a full 35
factorial experimental design. It was found that the part size
and orientation had a significant effect on the dimensional accuracy while the influence of the
shell saturation and position was relatively small. The results allow for better dimensional
specification for scaffold geometry fabrication by defining the process parameters in 3DP that
may be used further in scaffold accuracy optimization.