Rapid Prototyping Journal

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish a general method for achievable speed and accuracy evaluation of additive manufacturing (AM) machines and an objective comparison among them.

Design/methodology/approach – First, a general schematic is defined that enables description of all currently available AM machines. This schematic is used to define two influential factors describing certain parts' properties regarding the machines' yield during manufacturing. A test part is defined, that will enable testing the influence of these factors on the speed and accuracy of manufacturing. A method for implementing and adapting test parts is established for individual machine's testing. This method was used to test four different machines that are predominantly used in Slovenia at the moment.

Findings – Research has proven that the machine's yield had a predominant influence on the achievable manufacturing speeds of all the tested machines. In addition, the results have shown different ranges of achievable manufacturing speeds for individually tested machines. Test parts' measurement results have shown comparable achievable accuracies for all the tested machines.

Research limitations/implications – Speed evaluation is based on a 2^k factorial design that assumes the linearity among individual points of the experiment. This design was chosen to keep the method as simple and quick as possible, in order to perform testing on those machines otherwise used in industrial environments. Accuracy evaluation was limited by a rather small sample size of ten fabricated test parts per machine.

Practical implications – The presented evaluation method can be used on any existing or future type of AM machine, and their comparative placement regarding achievable manufacturing speed and accuracy.

Originality/value – The presented method can be used to evaluate a machine regardless of the AM technology on which it is based.