Stage dependent strengthening of fused filament fabricated components

Recent improvements in the fused filament fabrication (FFF) technique have extended its usage for the manufacturing of finished products in a variety of engineering fields. However, some challenges are to be overcome including moderate mechanical, thermal, and physical properties of finished products. This paper reviews ways of improving these properties during three phases of manufacturing namely pre-processing phase, in-situ/on-site processing phase, and post-processing phase. A systematic review of these three phases is not much explored in the additive manufacturing process and hence there is a lot of scope for innovation in improving the quality of the finished product. Results of the review are finally concluded and it is found the approaches presented here in this paper resulted in increasing the performance of the fabrication process and allow for the fabrication of products with better mechanical, thermal and physical capabilities.