Geometrical Deviations In Additive Manufacturing – Influences On The Manufacturing Accuracy

The advantages of Additive Manufacturing (AM) highlight the capability to become an inherent part within the product development process. However, process specific challenges harm its further currency for industrial applications, for instance the high geometrical deviations. Different process factors influence the manufacturing accuracy and lead to large dimensional, form and positional deviations. Published research relative to deviations is difficult to compare, because it is based on several specimens that were manufactured with different processes, materials and machine settings. This fact emphasizes that reliable tolerance values for AM are hard to define in standards. Within this investigation, a universally applicable method was developed to examine geometrical deviations for AM processes. The main aim is the derivation of achievable tolerance values considering important influencing factors. Furthermore, due to the locally varying surface roughness of additively manufactured parts several tactile measurements were compared.