فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

Despite significant advancements in the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) process for manufacturing polymer parts, the fabrication of components still presents challenges such as poor geometric accuracy and inadequate edge quality. These limitations often necessitate post-processing operations, such as laser cutting, to achieve the desired dimensional accuracy and edge definition. In this study, laser beam cutting was employed as a post-processing technique for 3D-printed sheets. A polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) sheet with a thickness of 2.5 mm was initially fabricated under optimized conditions using the FDM process. Subsequently, a continuous-wave CO₂ laser with a maximum power of 120 W was used to investigate the effect of stand-off distance (SOD) on the resulting kerf geometry, including top kerf width, bottom kerf width, taper angle, top-to-bottom kerf ratio, top heat-affected zone (HAZ), and bottom HAZ. The kerf geometry was evaluated using optical microscopy (OM). The results indicate that increasing the SOD from 4 to 8 mm led to a significant increase in both top and bottom kerf widths, rising from 145 to 368 µm and from 73 to 195 µm, respectively. Furthermore, the minimum kerf width ratio (1.49) and taper angle (12.8°) were achieved at an SOD of 6 mm. The results also showed that the lowest top HAZ (141 µm) and bottom HAZ (256 µm) were obtained at an SOD of 7 mm.