3D printing is one of the additive manufacturing process in which product is created layer by layer. In almost all 3D printing first computer aided drawing (CAD) model is generated then it is coveted into Standard Tessellation language (STL) file format after that it is sliced to generate the toolpath for printer. In the thesis process planning for 3D printing using industrial robot is identified and verified. 3D printing is performed by industrial robot using feeder tool which feeds the plastic through the nozzle. The wire which is fed for 3D printing is controlled by Arduino Uno. For generating the path for 3D printing an add-in called RMD is used in process simulate. Add-in RMD is developed by University west.
First goal of thesis is to find process planning steps for the robotics 3D printing which involves all the process starting from CAD to final product and verify all the steps. The other goal is to find the process parameter which affects final products. Process planning steps from CAD to final product is identified and verified. The process planning step involves modelling, layer and manufacturing all these steps are verified and final product is produced. In modelling step the part that is to be manufactured is modelled. In layer step the pre-processing like converting 3D solid CAD model into layers that in turn is converted to robot code is done. In manufacturing step the downloaded robot code is loaded to real robot and the part is manufactured. Next is to find the process parameters which affects the final product. The process parameter which affects the final products are found. Since there are many parameters which affects the final product so only three process parameter like layer thickness, speed of robot and path to path width is selected based on literature. In order to verify this parameter experiment was designed according to Taguchi method at three levels then the surface roughness of 3D printed sample are measured using surface measuring instrument. According to analysis of S/N ratio and analysis of variance layer thickness was found to affect the final product more than the other two parameter. After layer thickness speed deposition has more effect on final product.