State of Art on Vapour Smoothing of Fused Deposition Modelling Components

Abstract

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is one of the additive manufacturing processes which can produce prototypes or functional components without the use of fixtures, and the lead time required is reduced drastically compared to traditional machining processes. The application of the FDM process in the biomedical and casting industries is limited by its poor surface roughness which is most generally caused by the staircase effect and chordal error of the 3D model. Owing to the drawbacks of mechanical based finishing techniques, researchers have come up with a new technique known as Vapour Smoothing (VS). In this work, past literature of the VS process of FDM components is reported and it has been seen that the VS process is giving a promising improvement in surface roughness of FDM components.