Revolutionizing metal 3D printing with fabrication of copper components via metal fused filament fabrication: A study on the effect of shaping parameters

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Abstract
Material extrusion-type additive manufacturing (AM) is widely adopted due to its simplicity and accessibility. The use of metal–polymer composite filaments, followed by debinding and sintering, is emerging as a promising approach for metal AM. This three-stage process is acknowledged as metal fused filament fabrication (MFFF). While most existing research has focused on stainless steel-based systems, this study investigates the relatively underexplored area of copper-polymer composite filament processing. In this work, a copper-polymer composite filament was used to print (shape) the green parts. The influence of shaping parameters—print temperature, bed temperature, print speed, and fan speed—on dimensional accuracy and density was systematically studied. A central composite design was adopted for experimentation, followed by the analysis of variance and regression modeling. Results showed that all shaping parameters significantly affected part properties, with certain interaction effects being particularly dominant. Multiobjective optimization by ratio analysis method was applied to identify optimal conditions, representing a novel contribution for copper MFFF. Based on the best parameters, successful green part was achieved. Subsequently, debinding and sintering operations were performed, resulting in a dense copper-rich part. The final part exhibited anisotropic shrinkage and geometric deviations, highlighting the importance of understanding material-specific behaviors. This study offers key insights into optimizing copper MFFF for reliable and high-quality part production.

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