SEAMHex - Fast 6D Additive Manufacturing using an innovative Screw Extruder applied on a Hexapod Parallel Kinematic

The Screw Extrusion Additive Manufacturing (SEAM) technology provides output rates up to 10 kg/h, a melt pressure up to 350 bar and temperatures up to 400 °C as well as strands with an adjustable bead width between 1-8 mm. Due to a bypass nozzle, position jumps without material extrusion, local wall thickness reduction, and the control of the volume flow (0-100 %) are made possible. Further, the extruder is able to process fiber-reinforced as well as highly filled plastics and integrates a regranulation system to return bypassed material into the process. The hexapod parallel kinematic meets the process requirements, as it generates a rapid movement of the workpiece (up to 1 m/s) in 6 degrees of freedom within a large printing workspace (1100 × 800 x 600 mm3), where an additional Z-axis carries the extruder and realizes the part height. Eccentric joints provide high accuracy and stiffness while being cost-efficient at the same time. The commercial Beckhoff TwinCAT control allows G-code processing and provides an HTML based GUI for machine and extruder control. Consequently, high accuracy is achieved, which is verified by the use of a double-ball-bar measuring device and by producing a test workpiece.