Anatomy of a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) 3D Printing System for High-Grade Polymers (HGPs)—An Overview

Fused filament fabrication (FFF) or fused deposition modeling (FDM) is one of the most common extrusion-based technology used for additive manufacturing (AM). It differs from the subtractive manufacturing technique in its material utilization and ability to fabricate complex parts. FFF is found to be convenient and easy in many ways, e.g., associated manufacturing setup and process are non-toxic, cost-energy effective, latest technology driven, less time engineering, virtual inventory control, etc. In the past, many researchers worked on the improvement of process parameters on the functionality of FFF machines to enhance mechanical, thermal, and electrical properties of AM objects. On the other hand, few research groups have worked on the exploration of finding new materials used in medical industry, tissue engineering, dental parts, etc. The core part of the FFF machines are extruder system, and nozzle has been focused by few researchers. FFF led the expansion of many desktop 3D printers based on their material use. However, the design aspects of FFF machine components and their assembly were not much discussed by many in the past. The main focus of the current study is on discussing the design of different prime elements (anatomy) along with their functionality to handle high-grade (performance) polymers (HGPs). This paper confers the shortcomings of filament-based extruder system and also paves future scopes of FFF technology over the existing filament-based extrusion system (filament extruder). © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd