Test artefacts for additive manufacturing: A design methodology review

Abstract

For the past few decades, additive manufacturing (AM) has paved the way to several processes through a wide range of commercially available machines. Benchmark artefacts were developed to set a common reference in order to assess and compare AM machine limitations. In this paper, a review of different AM benchmark artefact design methodologies is presented. More precisely, the evolution of design methods is described. Originally, additive manufacturing machines were assessed by establishing their ability to produce defined features. Indeed, AM benchmark artefact design inherited traditional subtractive manufacturing methods by defining simple geometries. However, due to the AM available freedom, no standard artefact can be sufficiently representative of the diversity of studied criteria. Furthermore, metrology aspects were not considered. Facing the variety of benchmark artefacts available, proposed guidelines then focused on defining systematic design methods rather than standard artefacts. Several methods have been proposed to help designing benchmark artefact suited for considered criteria. Nevertheless, some traditional simple geometries are found incompatible with measuring instruments that can hardly characterise AM free-form surfaces for example. That is why, more recently, significant efforts have been made to consider measurement issues and uncertainties in the artefact design stage. As this paper concludes, benchmark artefacts now tend to be designed in a more metrological way integrating the whole post-manufacturing measurement process relying on statistical modelling and instrument comparisons. Regarding the raised stakes, a final set of recommendations is provided to conciliate both manufacturers' and metrologists' point of view in benchmark artefact design.

An error identification and compensation method for Cartesian 3D printer based on specially designed test artifact

“…Moreover, during the printing process, many objects are printed inside the isothermal cabinet of the FDM 3D printer to avoid the rapid shrinkage of the materials with the cabinet door locked, which means the direct measurement of the axial motion of an enclosed FDM 3D printer is difficult by using a ball-bar or laser tracker. Without these measuring instruments, it is necessary to adopt a mathematical approach to identify the source of errors [8] and determine the printing accuracy of the 3D printer based upon a test artifact [9].…”

Towards Realistic Numerical Modelling of Thin Strut-Based 3d-Printed Structures

“…From a geometrical perspective, implementing the DfAM concept necessitates dimensional characterisation of printed test parts (or artefacts) that replicate specific geometric features (Toguem Tagne et al, 2018). Several studies have been conducted on the development of artefacts by considering DfAM capabilities and limitations (de Pastre et al, 2020). In this paper, we include the design of an AM test artefact that replicates thin strut-like features as often seen in lattice structures for lightweight applications (Xiao et al, 2015).…”

Adaptive benchmarking design for additive manufacturing processes

“…AM processes are much more recent than conventional forming processes, such as machining [5,6]. They suffer from lack of standards, especially with regard to dimensional and geometrical performance assessment.…”

“…They suffer from lack of standards, especially with regard to dimensional and geometrical performance assessment. As opposed to machining, there are currently no dimensional or geometrical tolerance values dedicated to AM processes [5,6].…”

“…Two approaches exist to assess the performances of a 3D printing machine: on-machine (direct) metrology and off-line (indirect) metrology [5][6][7]. On-machine metrology requires the observation of the part during manufacturing or the measurement of process-related variables [5][6][7].…”