Preliminary study on the impact of thermal processing on the performances of parts obtained by fused deposition modeling (FDM)

Additive Manufacturing (AM) allows to build complex geometries while generating less waste than conventional processes such as machining. However, in AM processes such as Material Extrusion (MEX), workpieces tend to have low mechanical properties, low dimensional accuracy as well as rough surfaces. Indeed, several pre-processing and post-processing techniques exist to attempt to control these concerns. One post-processing method, namely thermal annealing, is already widely used with metallic parts. However, the influence of this technique has yet to be tested on mechanical properties such as tensile properties, dimensions, and surface roughness for polymer parts obtained by MEX and, particularly, by Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM). This paper aims to determine the relevance of using thermal annealing as a post-process to enhance FDM-obtained parts tensile properties while keeping in mind their dimensional and surface roughness aspects.