This paper constructs a combined build time, process energy consumption and cost estimator for an Additive Manufacturing platform of the material jetting type (Stratasys Objet Connex 260). Unlike previous estimation approaches, this paper develops a model of build time that reflects the movement of a print head depositing material in the build process. In a series of validation experiments, this approach produced accurate build time estimates in the majority of cases. The observed absolute errors range from 4.00% to 39.18% for build time estimation and from 2.58% to 48.28% for process energy consumption, exhibiting an overall mean absolute error of 15.31%. The proposed build time estimator is compared to two more general specifications, one treating deposition time per layer as fixed and one relating total build time to deposition area per layer. It is shown that both alternative specifications produce greater estimation errors.
Martin Baumers, Ricky Wildman, Chris Tuck, Phill Dickens, Richard Hague, "Modeling build time, process energy consumption and cost of material jetting-based Additive Manufacturing" in Proc. IS&T Int'l Conf. on Digital Printing Technologies and Digital Fabrication (NIP31), 2015, pp 311 - 316, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-4451.2015.31.1.art00069_1