International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345

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International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture

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international-journal-of-lightweight-materials-and-manufacture

Original Article

Sustainable FDM additive manufacturing of ABS components with

emphasis on energy minimized and time efficient lightweight
construction
Khalid A. Al-Ghamdi*
Department of Industrial Engineering, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is a widely used additive manufacturing process with applications in
Received 2 May 2019 rapid prototyping and rapid manufacturing. In view of increasing trend of sustainable manufacturing, the
Received in revised form present study was focused on analyzing the process sustainability with an objective to ensure light-
26 May 2019
weight construction with minimized energy consumption and printing time. Having extensive appli-
Accepted 27 May 2019
Available online 31 May 2019
cations in industry and being an amenable printing material, Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) was
used as the test material. A Design of Experiments (DoE) composed of 46 tests was conducted by varying
four different printing parameters namely layer thickness, fill density, feed rate and shell thickness. Three
Keywords:
Additive manufacturing
important measures of sustainable manufacturing (specific energy, specific mass and specific time) were
FDM measured during experimentation. The statistical variance analysis was performed on the DoE results,
Sustainable which revealed that the considered printing parameters had significant influence on the mentioned
Parameters sustainability measures with an exception that the feed rate did not affect the specific mass. The values of
Analysis these measures were observed to decrease with a decrease in the fill density and shell thickness, and an
Optimization increase in the layer thickness and feed rate: feed rate, however, did not affect the specific mass. The
degree of these effects was observed to depend on the companion printing parameters thereby showing
strong interactive and complex effects of parameters. This suggests that the printing parameters should
be chosen judiciously in order to achieve sustainable printing, for which results presented in this study
can be greatly helpful. Regression analysis was performed to devise prediction models with a purpose to
estimate considered sustainability measures for FDM printing of ABS material. Finally, optimum printing
conditions are proposed in order to ensure sustainable printing in the FDM process.
© 2019 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction customized parts thereby offering a cost effective solution to recent

Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) is the most popular additive
manufacturing process followed by Selective Laser Melting (SLM).
The process offers high shape flexibility thereby eliminating the
need of shape-dependent tooling. The direct manufacturing from
CAD model reduces the lead time and thus enables production of
small batches at reduced time and cost in comparison to competing
traditional manufacturing. The inherited flexibility of the process
to adopt any complex design helps rapid manufacturing of
* Fax: þ966126402000.
E-mail addresses: kaaalghamdi@kau.edu.sa, khalidghamdi77@hotmail.com.
market demand of customization and small batch production.
The FDM process has demonstrated a host of applications in a
number of fields. The major areas benefited from FDM include
biomedical and rapid tooling. A range of biomedical parts have
been produced as reviewed in Refs. [1,2]. These include tissue en-
gineering scaffolds and prosthetics [3,4]. FDM has proved as a
reliable and an economical source of rapid manufacturing of tooling
for several manufacturing processes [5]. Sacrificial patterns for in-
vestment casting, patterns for sand casting and, molds for injection
molding are worth mentioning in this regards [6,7].
FDM also enables design realization through fabrication of
functional prototypes [6]. The industries that have benefited from
FDM in various capacities in terms of functional components or
prototypes include biomedical, plastics, automotive and electronics

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijlmm.2019.05.004
2588-8404/© 2019 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345 339

[2,5]. With the development of new filament materials [5,8], the The following four printing parameters were opted as the var-
application horizon of FDM is now extending to drug delivery de- iables of DoE:
vices and aerospace manufacturing such as unmanned Air Vehicles
(UAVs) and weapon systems. The efforts to devise strategies to
make additive manufacturing a more competitive manufacturing
method in various areas are still underway in order to further Layer thickness Dh in mm
benefit from this technology in the years to come [9e13]. Fill density FD in %
Feed rate F in mm/min
With the increasing awareness of environment coupled with
Shell thickness ts in mm
tight environmental laws, the concept of sustainable
manufacturing is drawing increasing attention from the manu-
facturers. Product manufacturing with minimized energy utili-
These parameters are well-known and their definitions can be
zation has become the prime objective nowadays [14e17].
consulted from the published literature [5,7]. The low and high
Therefore, new processes, materials and strategies are being
levels of these parameters are shown in Table 1. These levels were
sought out and employed in order to achieve this goal.
selected based on the best practices and printer limits. The other
Energy consumption and time efficiency are two important
parameters that include raster angle, bed temperature, nozzle
pillars of sustainable manufacturing. In FDM, limited efforts have
diameter and filament diameter, as defined elsewhere [5,7], were
been spent in this direction. The work has been performed to know
kept fixed as listed in Table 1. The variables data were fed into a DoE
the energy impact of machine architecture and process effects on
package Design Expert-10, which turned out a detailed test plan of
power consumption [18,19]. Although power consumption has
46 tests. The plan is shown in Table 2. As can be observed, the CCD
been paid attention, limited variables (e.g., speed and material
arrangement varied each parameter over 3 levels along with five
flow) were undertaken and also a 2 level factorial design was
replicates in order to account for the statistical variations in the
employed for analysis [19]. Such a test arrangement is normally
results to be measured during experiments.
used to narrow down the influential parameters to perform further
A 100 mm  100 mm  50 mm cube was selected as the target
in-depth analysis, which is yet missing to best knowledge of the
printing geometry. The printing was carried out utilizing the
author. Therefore, detailed investigation on energy consumption
experimental set up shown in Fig. 1. This includes an FDM printer
taking into account the missing parameters should be performed in
(Make: Explorer 3D), Filament spool of ABS and a clamp meter. The
order to have exhaustive knowledge on the subject. This is also
clamp meter (Make: Mastech) was used to measure the voltage and
necessary from the view point of environmental burden, as energy
current consumed by the single phase printer during printing. The
consumed in a process is believed to have a direct effect on carbon
energy consumed to print the target geometry was obtained using
emissions [16]. Besides energy, lightweight construction also con-
the below relation:
tributes to sustainability especially that of a product by minimizing
the component mass thereby cutting down the material cost and
associated emissions incurred in its production. Similarly, printing pffiffiffi pffiffiffi
U ¼ Es þEFix þEP ¼ 2 PF:V:IFix :Ts þ 2 PF:V:IFix :TP
time affects sustainability by influencing the energy consumed, pffiffiffi (2)
machine utilization and labor cost thereby affecting the overall þ 2 PF:V:IP :TP
product cost.
In view of above discussion, the aim of the present study is to where
analyze the FDM process in order to enable lightweight and time U is the specific energy consumed to print unit volume (GJ/m3)
efficient construction with minimized energy consumption. Acry- Es is the energy consumed in setting up printing while printer is
lonitrile Butadiene Styrene (ABS) is a low-cost polymer alloy with in “on” mode
fairly high impact strength, tensile strength, and shock resistance EFix is the fixed energy consumed by the printer for the period of
[20]. Owing to these excellent properties, it has found extensive printing
industrial applications in Injection Molding. Moreover, having low EP is the energy consumed due to printing
melting point, it is being widely utilized as a printing material. PF is the power factor, which was 0.9 for the current printing
Therefore, ABS is employed as the experimental material. Four machine
different printing parameters of FDM process are varied over wide V is the input voltage to the printer, which was 220 V
ranges and the effects of their variations are systematically IFix is the fixed electric current consumed by the printer without
analyzed on three important sustainability measures namely en- printing initiated
ergy consumption, product mass and printing time. Based on the
results, optimum conditions with an objective to achieve sustain-
Table 1
able product printing are also worked out. Variable and fixed printing parameters employed in the present study.

Variable parameters Low High

2. Experimental methodology
Dh (mm) 0.2 0.8
ts (mm) 2 10
To perform sustainability analysis on FDM printing of ABS ma- FD (%) 20 100
terial, the Design of Experiment (DoE) approach was adopted. Feed (mm/min) 20 80
Amongst various design options, Response Surface Method (RSM) Fixed parameters
was applied as this method allows analysis with a reasonably low
Print volume 100  100  50 mm3
number of tests. Amongst RSM Designs, Central Composite Design Bed temperature 85  C
(CCD) defined by the following relation was implemented [21]: Print temperature 230  C
Overlap 0.22%
S ¼ f ðk1 ; k2 ; k3    ; kn Þ þ c (1) Raster angle 45 /-45
Printing speed at first layer 15 mm/min
where ki represents a variable, c is the error due to noise and S is the Nozzle diameter 1 mm
Filament diameter 1.75 mm
response.
340 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345

Table 2 The following three sustainability measures were adopted as

Experimental plan and results. response variables of the DoE:
Test # Dh FD F ts U m T

mm % mm/min mm GJ/m3 kg/m3 K-hr/m3

1 0.2 60 50 6 5.622871 598.1942 21.32008

Specific energy U (GJ/m3)
2 0.2 100 80 2 5.221992 861.2555 19.80008
Specific mass m (kg/m3)
3 0.8 20 80 2 0.483184 248.4925 1.832083
Specific time T (K-hr/m3)
4 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083
5 0.2 20 20 10 9.336274 425.4798 35.40008
6 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083
7 0.2 100 20 2 18.87455 861.2555 71.56608 3. Results and discussion
8 0.2 100 80 10 5.186652 860.3803 19.66608
9 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083 3.1. Influential printing parameters
10 0.2 20 80 2 1.617249 236.0859 6.132083
11 0.2 20 20 2 5.309553 236.0859 20.13208
12 0.8 20 80 10 0.747447 436.342 2.834083 Table 3 lists results pertaining to various sustainability measures
13 0.2 20 20 10 9.336274 425.4798 35.40008 i.e., specific energy U, specific mass m, and specific time T. The
14 0.5 60 80 6 1.565029 599.4297 5.934083 specific energy consumed varies from 0.48 GJ/m3 to 18.9 GJ/m3,
15 0.2 20 80 10 2.63738 425.4798 10.00008
specific mass varies from 236 kg/m3 to 868 kg/m3 and specific time
16 0.8 100 80 10 1.40837 867.6904 5.340083
17 0.2 20 20 2 5.309553 236.0859 20.13208 varies from 1.83 K-hr/m3 to 71.6 K-hr/m3 [20]. These variations can
18 0.2 100 20 10 18.87455 861.2555 71.56608 be attributed to corresponding variations in the printing parame-
19 0.8 60 50 6 1.503315 607.615 5.700083 ters, which will be detailed in the next sub-section.
20 0.5 60 50 10 2.470171 644.32 9.366083 The identification of influential parameters is a start point in
21 0.8 100 20 10 5.186652 867.6904 19.66608
22 0.8 20 80 2 0.483184 248.4925 1.832083
sustainability analysis in order to control various sustainability
23 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083 measures. In the present analysis, these were identified by imple-
24 0.8 20 80 10 0.747447 436.342 2.834083 menting a statistical technique “Analysis of Variance (ANOVA)” on
25 0.8 20 20 10 2.426391 436.342 9.200083 the results shown In Table 4. The ANOVA was performed using the
26 0.5 60 20 6 5.327487 599.4297 20.20008
Design Expert statistical package. The analysis began with adjusting
27 0.2 100 20 10 18.82022 861.2555 71.36008
28 0.2 20 80 2 1.617776 236.0859 6.134083 the fit model to the data (i.e., results pertaining to each sustain-
29 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083 ability measure). Modified quadratic model (i.e., quadratic plus
30 0.8 20 20 2 1.415227 248.4925 5.366083 three-factor interactions) was found to have good fit, so this model
31 0.5 60 50 2 2.153688 550.3181 8.166083 was selected for each of the sustainability measures. The main
32 0.8 100 80 10 1.40837 867.6904 5.340083
33 0.5 100 50 6 3.243972 860.9981 12.30008
components of ANOVA (i.e., f-value and P-value) were determined
34 0.2 100 80 10 5.186652 860.3803 19.66608 through DX-10 software as shown for three sustainability measures
35 0.8 20 20 2 1.415227 248.4925 5.366083 in Table 4. A term with p  0.05 was regarded as significant [21]. As
36 0.5 20 50 6 1.3187 337.501 5.000083 can be observed, all of the four considered parameters have sig-
37 0.8 20 20 10 2.426391 436.342 9.200083
nificant influence on the energy and time. However, for specific
38 0.8 100 80 2 1.415227 868.5141 5.366083
39 0.8 100 20 2 4.808454 868.5141 18.23208 mass, only three out of four are significant while one parameter
40 0.2 100 20 2 18.87297 861.2555 71.56008 (i.e., feed rate F) does not have any influence.
41 0.8 100 80 2 1.415227 868.5141 5.366083 This is to notice from Table 4 that the cross interaction of pa-
42 0.5 60 50 6 2.311929 599.4297 8.766083 rameters is also significant besides the individual parameters
43 0.2 20 80 10 2.63738 425.4798 10.00008
44 0.8 100 20 2 4.808454 868.5141 18.23208
thereby showing that the degree and nature of influence of one
45 0.2 100 80 2 5.221992 861.2555 19.80008 parameter are dependent on the companion parameter (s). In
46 0.8 100 20 10 4.791206 867.6904 18.16668 addition to two-factor interactions (2FI), three-factor interactions
(3FI) can also be observed for specific energy and specific mass,
which reveals that the sustainability measures in FDM of ABS
IP is the electric current consumed by the printer due to printing highly depend on the inter-dependent effects.
Ts is the time consumed in setting up the work, which was 5 min
TP is the printing time to print unit volume of geometry 3.2. Energy analysis

Fig. 2(aee) presents the effects of influential printing parame-

ters on specific energy. The specific energy, regardless of the
interacting parameters, increases with increasing the fill density FD
(Fig. 2 (a, c, e)) attributing to a fact that the printing time increases.
However, the degree of its influence on energy depends on the
companion printing parameters in a way that the energy increase
with fill density is relatively low when printing is done using higher

Table 3
Properties acrylonitrile butadiene styrene.

Property Value

Density 1.07 g/cm3

Conductivity 0.1 W m1K1
Glass transition temperature 105  C
Printing temperature 230  C
Fig. 1. Experimental set up of FDM with printing in progress.
 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345 341

Table 4
Analysis of variance.

Source f-value p-value Significant f-value p-value Significant f p-value Significant

Prob > f Prob > f Value Prob > f

Model 3.96Eþ05 <0.0001 ✓ 5.21Eþ03 <0.0001 ✓ 5209.03 <0.0001 ✓

Dh 2110.17 <0.0001 ✓ 37188.63 <0.0001 ✓ 37188.65 <0.0001 ✓
ts 2.13Eþ05 <0.0001 ✓ 1.36Eþ03 <0.0001 ✓ 1355.64 <0.0001 ✓
FD 6.72Eþ06 <0.0001 ✓ 1.89Eþ04 <0.0001 ✓ 18917.57 <0.0001 ✓
F 0.26 0.6172 e 32489.03 <0.0001 ✓ 32489.05 <0.0001 ✓
Dh.ts 5.29 0.0295 ✓ 0.48 0.4964 e 0.48 0.4963 e
Dh.FD 118.45 <0.0001 ✓ 9.01 0.005 ✓ 9.02 0.005 ✓
Dh-F 0.27 0.6065 e 26.7 <0.0001 ✓ 26.7 <0.0001 ✓
ts.FD 2.03Eþ05 <0.0001 ✓ 1.29Eþ03 <0.0001 ✓ 1288.9 <0.0001 ✓
ts.F 0.27 0.6065 e 16.17 0.0004 ✓ 16.17 0.0004 ✓
FD.F 0.27 0.6065 e 40.92 <0.0001 ✓ 40.92 <0.0001 ✓
D h2 88.91 <0.0001 ✓ 340.05 <0.0001 ✓ 340.05 <0.0001 ✓
t2s 33.22 <0.0001 ✓ 0.24 0.6293 e 0.24 0.6293 e
FD2 0.26 0.6125 e 88.37 <0.0001 ✓ 88.37 <0.0001 ✓
F2 4.98E-04 0.9824 e 3.20Eþ02 <0.0001 ✓ 319.66 <0.0001 ✓
Dh.ts.FD 1.9 0.179 e 4.41 0.0452 ✓ 4.41 0.0452 ✓
Dh.ts.F 0.27 0.6065 e 1.27 0.2703 e 1.27 0.2703 e
Dh.FD.F 0.27 0.6065 e 4.06 0.05 ✓ 4.06 0.05 ✓
ts.FD.F 0.27 0.6065 e 5.59 0.0256 ✓ 5.59 0.0256 ✓

Fig. 2. Significant effects for specific energy consumption: (a) fill density and layer thickness, (b) feed rate and layer thickness, (c) fill density and shell thickness, (d) shell thickness
and feed rate, and (e) fill density and feed rate.

values of layer thickness Dh and feed rate F. This happens because
the printing time correspondingly reduces.
Likewise, the energy consumption reduces with layer thickness
with greater effect on using high fill density and low feed rate Fig. 2
(a, b) because the printing time increases proportionally. The shell
thickness ts poses a similar effect on energy Fig. 2 (c, d); however, its
effect is relatively slight. Contrary to these three effects, the feed
rate has an opposite influence on energy Fig. 2 (b, d, e) reasoning to
a corresponding reduction in the printing time. Further, the influ-
ence of increasing feed rate on reduction in energy consumption is
further diminished when printing is performed using higher layer
thickness. This occurs because an increase in layer thickness,
similar to an increase in feed rate, also reduces printing time
thereby leading to an overall reduction in energy consumption.
The response surfaces presented in Fig. 2 suggest that one
should perform printing with a high value of feed rate and low
values of fill density, layer thickness and shell thickness in order to
minimize energy consumption in FDM printing of ABS components.
3.3. Mass analysis
The specific mass as the function of various significant printing
parameters is presented in Fig. 3(aec). The mass regardless of the
other printing parameters increases as the fill density increases
Fig. 3 (b, c), for the proportion of unfilled region correspondingly
decreases. However, the rate of increase in mass with fill density is
slightly lower at higher shell thickness because the volume of shell
region that is always printed with 100% fill density increases
thereby overall lowering the non-shell volume in the part.
As the shell thickness increases, the specific mass increases
when the fill density is kept low. However, this effect gradually
becomes negligible when the fill density increases to 100%
342 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345
Fig. 3. Significant effects for specific mass: (a) shell thickness and layer thickness, (b) fill density and layer thickness, and (c) fill density and shell thickness.
(Fig. 3(c)). Because shell and non-shell regions both are printed
with 100% fill density. The effect of layer thickness on mass seems
to be rather slight Fig. 3(a,b).
The conducive conditions to minimize the specific mass include
low fill density and small shell thickness.
3.4. Time analysis
Fig. 4(aee) portrays the effects of various significant printing
parameters on the printing time. An increase in the printing time
occurs as the fill density increases, and either of the layer thick-
ness or feed rate decreases. The degree of influence of these
parameters, however, varies with the type and value of interact-
ing parameters. For instance, the rate of increase in time with fill
density is higher for low layer thickness than that for high layer
thickness (Fig. 4(a)). The same is true for feed rate against layer
thickness (Fig. 4(b)). Similar trend is shown by layer thickness
against feed rate in Fig. 4(b). As far as the influence of shell
thickness is concerned, the printing time slightly increases with
an increase in the shell thickness. Comparing Figs. 2 and 4, it can
be concluded that the effects of parameters on energy and time
are alike.
An increase in printing time with an increase in fill density can
be reasoned to a fact that more volume needs to be filled as the fill
density increases. The increase in printing time with decreased feed
rate occurs because the speed at which the nozzle traverses the
printing area reduces. The increase in time with reduced layer
thickness can be attributed to a reason that the number of layers to
build a unit volume increases.
Low fill density, high layer thickness, high feed rate and lower
shell thickness promote reduction in the printing time.
3.5. Optimum conditions and prediction models
In order to ensure sustainable manufacturing, printing must be
carried out using a set of parameters that allows minimum energy
consumption, reduced product mass and low production time. With
these indicators in mind, an iterative approach of below defined
desirability function [21] was applied to search out a solution:
1=ðr1þr2þ::::þrmÞ
l ¼ ðb1 r1 :b2 r2 :::::::bm rm Þ (3)
where bi is the response desirability, ri is the importance of each
response and l is the combined desirability of all responses.
The optimization criteria applied to achieve the goal is shown in
Table 5. After going through a number of iterative solutions, the
Design Expert software proposed a solution, which is presented in
Table 5. This solution includes low values of fill density, shell
thickness and high values of layer thickness and feed rate. The
proposed solution is believed to consume the electric energy of
0.53 GJ/m3, the filament mass of 244.6 kg/m3 and printing time of
2 K-hr/m3. This solution was cross checked through conducting an
experiment against the proposed conditions, and it was found that
the aforementioned predicted quantities were close to the experi-
mental ones as given in Table 5.
Though the graphs shown in Figs. 2e4 presents a picture of
relationship between the printing parameters and various sus-
tainability measures, a prediction model can provide a compre-
hensive correlation between the printing parameters and a
response thereby enabling the estimation of a sustainability mea-
sure against a given set of parameters. For this purpose, regression
analysis was conducted utilizing the Design Expert package. The
analysis turned out the following models:
 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345 343

Fig. 4. Significant effects for specific time: (a) fill density and layer thickness, (b) fill density and layer thickness, (c) fill density and shell thickness, (d) shell thickness and fill density,
and (e) fill density and feed rate.

Table 5
Optimum conditions to achieve sustainability in FDM printing of ABS material.

Dh (mm) ts (mm) FD (%) F (mm/min) U (GJ/m3) m (kg/m3) T (K-hr/m3) Desirability

e

Criteria in range in range in range in range minimize minimize minimize

Proposed 0.7 2 20 80 0.53 244.6 1.99 0.994
Experimental 0.7 2 20 80 0.55 244.3 2

Ln ðUÞ ¼ 2:65  4:76 Dh þ 0:1 ts þ 0:027 FD  0:044 F  5:71E
 03Dh: ts  8:13E  04 Dh: FD þ 3:83E  03Dh: F
 9:46E  04 ts : FD  1:66E  04 ts : F  1:92E
 05 FD:F þ 2:51Dh2  3:73E  04 ts 2  7:19E
 05 FD2 þ 2:43E  04 F 2 þ 1:53E  04 Dh: ts : FD
 1:09E  04 Dh: ts : F  1:95E  05 Dh: FD: F
þ 1:72E  06 ts : FD: F
(4)
m ¼ 19:03  14:32 Dh þ 31:3 ts þ 8:44 FD þ 6:64E  03 F
 0:46 Dh: ts  0:12 Dh: FD  0:012 Dh: F  0:29 ts : FD
 5:32E  04 ts : F  5:32E  05 FD: F þ 38:52 Dh2
 0:13 ts 2  1:18E  04 FD2 þ 9:11E  06 F 2 þ 3:02E
 03 Dh: ts : FD þ 1:52E  03 Dh: ts : F þ 1:52E
 04 Dh: FD: F  1:14E  05 ts : FD: F
(5)
Ln ðTÞ ¼ 3:99  4:75 Dh þ 0:096 ts þ 0:027 FD  0:044 F
 5:71E  03 Dh: ts  8:13E  04 Dh: FD þ 3:83E
 03 Dh: F  9:46E  04 ts : FD  1:66E  04 ts : F
 1:92E  05 FD: F þ 2:5 Dh2  3:73E  04 ts 2
 7:19E  05 FD2 þ 2:43E  04 F 2 þ 1:53E
þ 04 Dh: ts : FD  1:09E  04 Dh: ts : F  1:95E
 05 Dh: FD: F þ 1:72E  06ts : FD: F
(6)
A number of tools are in practice to examine the fitness of
empirical prediction models, namely R2 value, Predicted Vs Actual
plot and Predicted Vs Residuals plot. The R2 value for each of the
proposed model is listed in Table 6. As can be seen that the R2
values are fairly high suggesting that the data points are well fitted
to the respective model. The data points in the predicted Vs Actual
plot follows a 45 line (Fig. 5), and the data points in the Predicted
Vs Actual plot fall within the limits (Fig. 6) thereby further con-
firming that the proposed models are fit to correctly predict the

Table 6
The predicted and adjusted R2 values for the proposed models.

Measure R2-adjusted R2-predicted R2-model

U 99.9 9.99 99.97

m 100 100 100
T 99.9 9.99 99.97
344 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345

Fig. 5. Predicted Vs actual plot: (a) Specific energy, (b) Specific mass, and (c) Specific time.

Fig. 6. Residuals Vs predicted: (a) specific energy, (b) specific mass, and (c) specific time.

sustainability measures, but within the investigated range of found to be slight. The rate of change in these sustainability
parameters. measures with a change in a parameter is not fixed; rather it
depends on the type and value of interacting parameter. As an
instance, the rate of increase in energy and time with fill density
4. Conclusions
is greater when printing is done at a low layer thickness than at
a high layer thickness. There are many other such scenarios that
Energy consumption, product mass and process time are three of
have been discussed in the current study.
the important performance measures of sustainable manufacturing.
4. The prediction models to predict various sustainability mea-
The present study statistically analyzed the effects of various
sures, within the considered range of parameters, have been
printing parameters with an objective to minimize energy con-
proposed using which one can estimate and manage the desired
sumption and printing time and to ensure lightweight construction
sustainability in the FDM printing of ABS components in specific
of ABS components through FDM additive manufacturing. The
and other materials in general.
following are the important findings of the study:
5. The optimum printing conditions with an objective to obtain
sustainable additive manufacturing for ABS components have
1. The variance analysis reveals that all of the considered printing
been worked out as follows: fill density ¼ 20%; layer
parameters, namely fill density, layer thickness, feed rate and
thickness ¼ 0.2 mm; feed rate ¼ 80 mm/min; shell
shell thickness have influence on the mentioned sustainability
thickness ¼ 2 mm. This set of conditions is believed to consume
measures with an exception that the feed rate does not affect the
the electric energy of 0.53 GJ/m3, the filament mass of 244.6 kg/
specific mass. As a result of these effects, the following variations
m3 and printing time of 2 K-hr/m3.
have been observed: the specific energy varies from 0.48 GJ/m3
to 18.9 GJ/m3, specific mass varies from 236 kg/m3 to 868 kg/m3 5. Future work
and specific time varies from 1.83 K-hr/m3 to 71.6 K-hr/m3.
2. The various parametric effects have been observed to involve in The analysis will be extended by incorporating the mechanical
two-factor and three-factor cross interactions thereby revealing properties of ABS components into performance measures
that the selection of one parameter affects the degree of influ- considered herein study.
ence of other parameter (s) on a considered sustainability
measure. Thus, it can be said that the sustainability in FDM
highly depends on the interactive and complex effects of Conflicts of interest
printing parameters. Therefore, the parameters should be cho-
sen judiciously, for which the present analysis can be helpful. The authors declare that there is no conflicts of interest.
3. The specific energy and specific time both decrease with
decreasing the fill density and shell thickness and by increasing Acknowledgement
the feed rate and layer thickness. The same effects are found to
be true for the specific mass; however, feed rate remains an un- The author is thankful for the financial help and technical sup-
influential parameter and also the effect of layer thickness is port that King Abdulaziz University provided for this research work.
 K.A. Al-Ghamdi / International Journal of Lightweight Materials and Manufacture 2 (2019) 338e345 345

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