Abstract
For extrusion-based additive manufacturing, the mechanical performance in vertical direction (z-direction) is significantly lower than that in the printed layer plane (xy-direction). This paper presents a vertical extrusion approach across several layers to improve the mechanical properties of a 3D printed part. This approach is patent pending, and it involves depositing pins in the z-direction into predefined holes. It requires the vertical pins to mechanically engage with the surrounding structure of the holes. To maximize the mechanical performance of the printed structures with pins, we then analyzed the penetration quality of the pins with a wide range of hole depths, hole sizes, and pin volumes and obtained the relationship between the hole width and the hole depth for the full penetration of pins.
