Additive manufacturing by stereolithography: Analysis of the part geometry and influence of manufacturing position and orientation

Abstract

Stereolithography (SLA) is one of the most used processes of additive manufacturing and it uses a liquid resin as raw material. Based on a curing reaction each layer of this resin turns into a solid part. As any kind of manufacturing process, it has its limitations and difficulties, shrinkage is the common one that occurs during photopolymerization. It is possible to minimize it analyzing the parameters that affects the shrinkage factor, however, it was not found studies that analyze the influence of the orientation and position on the platform. In this article, the shrinkage of parts is measured and an analysis of variance of different oriented parts and positions is performed. According to the results, it was found that the location of the parts on the platform is an important factor according to the orientations of the manufactured geometries dimensions, so it should be considered as non-homogeneous during shrinkage correction.