Pet Flakes / Plastic Architecture

Axial Deformations The technical issues concerning the nozzle and its motion were quarreled and relatively high precision in the reproduction of g-codes was achieved but notwithstanding matters of deformation due to the plastic material itself were still unresolved. The problems related to material behavior were toughening up the development of the structures and resulted in lessening the design accuracy of the extrusion outcome. These deformations occurred in all axes of the created structures and depending on the geometrical proportions fluctuated in the extent of distortion.

As far as the Z-axis is concerned, the gravitational forces affected the extruded prototypes in two ways. The first had to do with distorting effects happening during the solidification process.

The gravity vector was dragging down some parts that were just extruded, and hence in a semi-liquid state, and created unexpected trajectories. This problem was noticed in a sine curve, where the upper parts started to collapse right after extrusion, losing their designed curvature. The second effect due to gravity concerned the shrinking of the geometry along its height when the extrusion was over, as when the fiber was detached from the nozzle the