NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF EXTRUSION-BASED ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING FOR PROCESS PARAMETER PLANNING IN A POLYMER DISPENSING SYSTEM

This paper establishes a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model using ANSYS Fluent for the time-pressure polymer dispensing process. The developed model simulates the process of liquid being applied on a substrate and predicts critical performance indexes, such as strand width and height, of the dispensing system. A mesh sensitivity analysis has been performed to identify the element size for achieving satisfactory accuracy and efficient computation time. The influences of material properties, such as surface tension and viscosity, on the simulation results were investigated. In addition, the effect of flow rate and nozzle translational speed on strand width were studied. The simulation results were validated against experimental measurements, and the model was demonstrated to be effective in predicting the strand width. Based on the simulations, a process map was constructed for process parameter planning and optimization.