Prediction of Printing Failure of a 3D Printed Drone Propeller using Fused Deposition Modeling

In a 3D printed propeller there is a chance of having high thermal stresses and voids among adjacent filaments around the curvature shape body, at the blade root or at the trailing edge, which leads to inter-layer weak bonding and delamination from that particular layer. Additionally, if the material possess high thermal expansion property, the part can be damaged during printing. These factors greatly influence the mechanical behavior and lifespan of the 3D printed propeller. Therefore prediction of these factors prior to printing will have a positive impact on the improvement of inter-layer bonding, overall strength, usage and long term performance of the propeller. This project predicts the high stress zones of a 3D printed drone propeller at process design stage and compare the stresses developed during in-service conditions between a 3D printed and non-3D printed propeller, both of which have the same material property and in-service conditions. ABAQUS is used to simulate the 3D printing process virtually which provides stresses as output. ABAQUS is also used to apply the in-service loadings in a rotating frame condition for both 3D and non-3D printed propeller to locate the high stresses and displacement zones of them. Successful implementation of Additive Manufacturing Framework (AMF) in ABAQUS has done to conduct the simulation for 3D printing process. The comparison clearly shows that the 3D printed propeller has more stresses all over the propeller body than the non-3D printed one, which make them more prone to breakage.