Determination of production parameters of fiber-reinforced thermoplastics manufactured by additive manufacturing based on hybrid manufacturing

The additive manufacturing method is a production in the design of models to be designed and created in the desired way by adding layers on top of each other. Its features such as production flexibility, rapid prototyping, and ease of use that traditional production methods cannot play an important role in the widespread use of this method. However, additive manufacturing has various shortcomings, such as low surface quality and dimensional accuracy, mainly due to the production principle. The hybrid manufacturing method, on the other hand, is a method that emerged as a result of combining different methods to strengthen the weaknesses of production methods. The study eliminated the weaknesses caused by the fused deposition technique (FDM) type additive manufacturing method by integrating the machining method. A hybrid manufacturing machine was produced by adding a cutting edge and DC motor to an FDM-type 3D printer. PLA and carbon fiber reinforced PLA material was produced, designed, and manufactured with this hybrid machine. The effects of production temperature and layer thickness on surface quality and dimensional accuracy were investigated. In addition, the produced samples' weights, densities, and surface roughness were measured and examined under a microscope. As a result of the experiments and measurements, it was observed that the hybrid manufacturing method generally increased the surface quality of the samples produced with both PLA and carbon fiber reinforced material on the x-axis, while there was a more significant increase on the z-axis. In the dimensional accuracy measurements using PLA and carbon fiber reinforced PLA material, the positive effect of hybrid manufacturing on dimensional accuracy was revealed.