Estudo sobre a utilização de dispositivos de fixação para usinagem fabricados pela tecnologia de modelagem por fusão e deposição

Abstract

Fixtures are commonly used in the manufacturing of complex parts, or in series production, but add cost and complexity to the process because they may require complex geometries and, therefore, demand machine time and specialized tooling. The fused deposition modeling process presents a low cost alternative that allows the production of complex fixtures. In this research, preliminary studies were conducted in the form of finite element simulations to verify the viability of the use of two thermoplastic polymers in the fabrication of soft jaws. Once the viability was verified, three sets of soft jaws were manufactured, one using traditional machining methods, and the rest through fused deposition modeling. With the objective of performing a comparative study, a set of parts were manufactured using each one of the sets of soft jaws. The dimensions of these parts were measured using a coordinate measuring machine and a geometric tolerance based comparative analysis was conducted. It was observed that, although they showed reduced performance, the fixtures produced through fused deposition modeling were a viable option for certain applications.