Thermal analysis of additive manufacturing of large-scale thermoplastic polymer composites

The incremental deposition process utilized by most additive manufacturing (AM) technologies presents significant challenges related to residual stresses and warping which arise from repeated deposition of hot material onto cooler material. These issues are magnified at larger scale, where even a small thermal strain can correspond to several millimeters of deformation. In this work we investigate the thermal evolution in thin walls of carbon fiber/acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (CF/ABS) composite materials fabricated via Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM). We measure the thermal evolution of composite parts during the build process using infrared imaging, and develop a simple 1D transient thermal model to describe the build process. The model predictions are in excellent agreement with the observed temperature profiles and from the results we develop criteria to guide deposition parameter selection to minimize the likelihood of cracking during printing.