Polymer Repair through Reverse Engineering and Material Extrusion: A Circular Manufacturing Approach

This study on reverse engineering (RE) and material extrusion (MEX) based Additive Manufacturing presents a precise and repeatable approach for part restoration through repair. A hemispherical additively fabricated dome shaped geometry was damaged via computer numerical control machining and subsequently digitized using 3D scanning. A reverse engineered repair patch was modeled based on the scanned data and fabricated using MEX process. The patch was adhesively bonded to the parent structure. Metrological deviation analysis confirmed sub micrometer reconstruction accuracy, with over 94% of the scanned data within ±1σ. The adhesively bonded patch showed excellent surface conformance. The findings demonstrate the feasibility of RE based additive repair, eliminating the need for full part replacement and thereby supports circular economic practices.