Compensating for shrinkage of 3D printed steel

#1

Hi There,

I have printed several projects in steel from different vendors and I am aware that dimensions are never guaranteed and unpredictable shrinkage will occur.

In the past my projects have been relatively small sized and non critical, so I just uploaded and printed without any regard of dimensions. However, I am now printing a relatively long part which will be noticably too short if there is no compensation made for the shrinkage.

Some vendors will scale the model up themselves to compensate for this shrinkage, and some wont.

I’d like to know if i.materialise scales the part up for me when they start printing, or if I need to scale it up myself when I upload. I am aware it needs to be scaled up around 3% for my chosen size, I just need to know if I need to scale this up myself, or if I should leave the part as is.

Thanks for answering!

#2

Hello Danny,

This is something that you should take into account before ordering. We advise you to scale up the desired design by 2% for designs where X, Y or Z is below 70 mm and 3% for models which are larger. Thus, this upscale will compensate the shrinkage and as result, the dimensional accuracy will be ±1%.

Regards,
i.Materialise Customer Support