ISI Journals

Additive Manufacturing (AM) has become ubiquitous in manufacturing three-dimensional objects through 3D printing. Traditional analytical models are still widely utilized for low – cost 3D Printing, which is deficient in terms of process, structure, property and performance relationship for AM. This paper focuses on the introduction of a new infill pattern – the lattice infill to increase material efficiency of 3D prints, coupled with Machine Learning (ML) technique to address geometric corrections in modelling the shape deviations of AM. Encompassed by ML algorithms, the neural network (NN) is used to handle the large dataset of the system. The 3D coordinates of the proposed infill pattern are extracted as the input of the NN model. The optimization technique of scaled conjugate gradient (SCG) is the algorithm used to train the feed forward ANN, and sigmoidal function was used as the activation type for output neurons. There is 0.00776625 cross-entropy (CE) performance and 98.8% accuracy during network training. The trained network is implemented to STL file for geometric corrections of the lattice infill pattern then made in a 3D printer slicing software. Conventional designs such as the cubic and grid infill pattern were also made for comparison. Engineering simulation software were used to simulate all three infill patterns, to measure approximate product weight, stress performance and displacement, given that there is an external force applied. Comparisons showed that the new infill pattern is more efficient than conventional infill patterns saving material up to 61.3%. Essentially increasing the amount of prints produced per spool by 2.5 times. The structure of the proposed design can also resist up to 1.6kN of compressive load prior to breaking.