Experimental and Numerical Investigation of the Die Swell in 3D Printing Processes

Fused deposition modelling is one of the most widely used additive manufacturing techniques and the diffusion of 3D printers has increased in popularity even further in recent times. Since high precision is required in 3D printing, a good control over the extrusion process is necessary. In this regard, a crucial phenomenon to be accounted for is the die or extrudate swell, i.e., the enlargement of the cross-section of the strand when coming out of the printer nozzle. While this phenomenon has been studied in large scale extruders, it has not yet been investigated in depth for 3D printing processes. In this work, the die swell phenomenon observed in a printed PLA filament is studied by experiments and fluid dynamic simulations. A novel, easy-to-use, accurate and fast procedure for measuring the value of the die swell ratio during the printing process is developed, accounting for typical errors related to a non-constant strand diameter and possible oscillations of the filament with respect to the extrusion direction. As the printing velocity is increased, a linearly increasing swelling ratio is observed at low printing speeds. The trend flattens at moderate speed values. A sudden increase is found at high printing velocities. The swelling ratio measured with the proposed technique is compared with the results of multi-mode viscoelastic simulations at different temperatures. A fair agreement between the experimental measurements and the numerical predictions is found for printing velocities that are typically employed in commercial 3D printers, supporting the reliability of the developed procedure.