Large-format additive manufacturing of polymer extrusion-based deposition systems: review and applications

Progress in Additive Manufacturing https://doi.org/10.1007/s40964-023-00397-9 REVIEW ARTICLE Large‑format additive manufacturing of polymer extrusion‑based deposition systems: review and applications Carlos M. S. Vicente1 · Manuel Sardinha1,2 · Luís Reis1 · António Ribeiro1 · Marco Leite1 Received: 10 August 2022 / Accepted: 7 January 2023 © The Author(s) 2023 Abstract Additive manufacturing (AM) of polymer large parts is a technological research area with great growth potential if the main barriers to its implementation are successfully addressed. In this research, a review of large-format AM (LFAM) processes for polymers is presented, followed by market research concerning the identification of large-format polymer commercial printers. An overview was performed covering the current LFAM systems configurations and their control aspects. The design and modelling approaches related with the fabrication of polymer large parts by AM, and the materials currently being applied and under development, were described. Finally, a summary of LFAM applications with a focus in the Transportation, Academic, Construction and Energy sectors, was presented. The current main advances in the LFAM of polymers are linked with the possibility of producing large parts in a faster, cheaper, and reliable way. The market research analysis concerning results for all AM families involving polymer materials reveals that, currently, the material extrusion AM process family is potentially the most suitable to produce large parts, with a significant number of applications attesting its capability to produce such large-format components. Keywords Material extrusion · LFAM · Big area · Reinforced thermoplastic filaments · Market research 1 Introduction Commonly denoted as 3D printing, additive manufacturing (AM) is defined by the standard ISO-ASTM 52,900:2021 as “the process of joining materials to make parts from 3D model data, usually layer upon layer, as opposed to subtractive manufacturing and formative manufacturing methodologies” [1]. By promoting a revolution in the way products * Carlos M. S. Vicente Manuel Sardinha Luís Reis António Ribeiro Marco Leite 1 IDMEC, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049‑001 Lisbon, Portugal 2 ADIST, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Av. Rovisco Pais, 1049‑001 Lisbon, Portugal are designed, manufactured, and distributed to end users, AM-related technologies have gained significant academic and industrial interest, due to their ability to create complex geometries with customizable material properties [2, 3]. The global interest on AM is revealed by the growing rate of both 3D printing systems sales and market value, that grew 27.4% over the previous 10 years, to nearly $12.8 billion by the end of 2020 [4]. Polymers are the most used 3D printed materials and there are more polymer 3D printers in use than any other technology. In 2019, 72% of the companies using AM were using polymer systems, compared to 49% metal systems [5]. Given the substantial opportunities in polymer AM production, predictions expect it to generate $24 billion in revenues in 2024, a number that includes sales of hardware, materials and 3D-printed parts combined [6]. On the other hand, the same reports refer that material extrusion technologies like Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) have already generated the most revenue among professional environments in 2019 [6]. Several reviews have been published for AM systems, materials, and applications in the last years, demonstrating the interest of the scientific community. Since 2018, there are general reviews [3–8], more applied with applications in 13 Vol.:(0123456789) Progress in Additive Manufacturing construction [9, 10], medical [11], aerospace [12, 13], and automotive [14]. There are several reviews concerning materials [15–22], equipment and systems [23, 24] and optimization of parts for AM [25–29]. Reviews on the use of AM in Industry 4.0 [30] and on economics aspects of AM [31, 32]. The issue of large part printing with polymers is so important that Tiwary et al. published a review on post-processing to join parts and circumvent build volume limitation of the FFF process [33]. In 2015, a first review was produced reporting the results of LFAM polymer systems [34] and in 2020, two reviews focused on LFAM with polymers were published with data collected from 2000 to 2020 [35, 36]. In this work, a state of the art of additively manufactured polymer large parts is conducted through a bibliographic and market research, aiming to guide research directions to improve the performance of systems and behavior of these large-format parts. This paper is organized as follows, first, a general review of 3D printing with polymers is presented in Sect. 2. Market research concerning large-format polymer commercial printers available with their main characteristics are exhibited. An overview covering current system configurations, workflow, constraints and their control aspects and mitigation is detailed after. Design and modelling approaches related with large-format parts and their thermal behavior, and materials for large part 3D printing finishes this section. Section 3 introduces current applications in the fields the Transportation, Academic, Construction and Energy sectors. Several examples of large parts applications and it benefits, and limitations are presented. Section 4 will resume some challenges and enumerate some opportunities for LFAM, and Sect. 5 will present conclusions and future work. The current main advances in the large-format system technologies are naturally linked with the possibility of producing large parts in a faster, cheaper, and reliable way. In this review, the authors accept that issues and challenges for both large format and “normal format” that are the same should be addressed in another work and therefore, the author assume only the differences and the issues of LFAM of polymers. For example, there are issues and challenges with software regarding slicing and trajectories of deposition heads to increase the quality of the finished part, but in this review, the authors focus on the issues for LFAM. 2 Large‑format polymer extrusion‑based deposition systems In this section, first, it is presented several issues associated with large parts 3D printing of polymeric parts, namely the AM processes for polymers, followed by systems architectures and configurations, process planning and materials for large parts. 13 In this work, the size of polymer parts produced by AM are classified according to the following terminology: small format AM for parts with a volume less than 1 3. m3 and LFAM for parts with a volume greater than 1 m Within the LFAM classification, medium size AM (MSAM) machines with volumes between 1 m 3 and 7 m3, and high size AM machines (HSAM) for parts larger than 7 m 3 were also considered. 2.1 AM processes for polymers To es (...truncated)