Chemical treatment can effectively reduce the surface roughness of fused deposition modeling (FDM) parts. An effort is made in this study to appraise the surface finish of poly lactic acid (PLA) parts by FDM with hot vapor smoothing treatment. The tests were designed as per the Taguchi L16 orthogonal array based factorial design of experimentation while varying process parameters such as time, temperature and solution concentration of hot vapor smoothing. The surface roughness of PLA parts after chemical treatment reduces in different degrees compared with FDM prototypes. The results of the statistical study indicate that the surface roughness is affected by treatment temperature. The optimum parameters that have been verified by performing the experiments may provide a theoretical basis for FDM parts in practical application.
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