Modelling of the thermal behaviour of free form extrusion

The performance of parts produced by Free Form Extrusion (FFE) may be limited by poor mechanical properties, due to poor bonding between the individual extruded filaments. In this work, an analytical solution is proposed for the transient heat transfer during filament deposition, taking into account contacts between filaments. The developed code using Matlab® allows to study the influence of the main process variables during filament deposition and may assist the process optimization