Investigation and optimization of extrusion based additive manufacturing conditions of granular thermoplastic materials

Additive manufacturing is a manufacturing technology in which complex geometries are produced by adding materials to each other in a short time and cost-effectively. With the doctoral study carried out in Eskisehir Technical University, Mechanical Engineering Digital Design and Digital Advanced Manufacturing research laboratory, a large-volume R&D and test-purpose three-dimensional printer capable of producing filament-based materials by melt melting method was produced. In order for the three-dimensional printer to process granule-based materials, a granule-fed extrusion system was established with a graduate study. In this thesis, experimental studies were carried out to process PEEK material and to determine the physical, chemical and mechanical properties of the test samples to be manufactured. Afterwards, since the recycled PEEK material cannot be extruded, tensile test specimens were produced in accordance with the tensile test and test specimen ASTM D638 Type-1 standard to determine the properties of the test specimen to be produced using the thermoplastic performance ABS granule material. Tensile Tests and DSC tests of the test specimens were performed with Taguchi L9 format, and the findings were analyzed by analysis of variance. After examining the experimental studies and optimizing the three-dimensional printer, improved differences were observed in the manufactured samples and the most suitable parameters for the granular material were determined.