Supplementary treatment of FDM printed parts. Review

The application of additive technologies to the manufacture of polymer and composite products is now actively expanding. The FDM printing process is popular because of its ability to adapt to specific tasks and to bring products with complex geometries into production quickly and at minimal cost, and is seen as a technology that can compete with injection molding. However, due to the nature of the process, FDM printed parts are significantly inferior in quality to injection molded parts. Much attention is now being paid to research into supplementary treatment methods to improve the properties of FDM printing parts. However, there is no complete and clear description of such methods, nor are there any recommendations on the choice of treatment methods aimed at improving the specific parts properties. The aim of this review is to analyse the research in the field of post-treatment of parts in order to systematise their advantages and limitations, which will allow a more reasoned choice of a post-treatment method to improve specific properties of FDM printing parts.