Effect of FDM/FFF Printing Surface Roughness on the Flowability of Metal Powder Compositions

The study examines how surface roughness depends on manufacturing parameters, using as an example a powder feed shaft produced by additive manufacturing with fused deposition modeling/fused filament fabrication (FDM/FFF) technology. The work presents an analysis of the properties and selection of PLA and PETG engineering polymers. The results provide roughness values for specimens fabricated by FDM at different build angles and layer heights, and they show how the roughness of printed parts influences the flowability of metal powder compositions. These findings demonstrate the feasibility of producing FDM parts with surface roughness parameters specified at the design stage.