Design for Additive Manufacturing and for Machining in the Automotive Field

Elena Bassoli,Emanuele Tognoli,Silvio Defanti,Lorenzo Degli Esposti,Nicolò Vincenzi

doi:10.3390/app11167559

Elena Bassoli, Emanuele Tognoli + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/app11167559

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Abstract

High cost, unpredictable defects and out-of-tolerance rejections in final parts are preventing the complete deployment of Laser-based Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) on an industrial scale. Repeatability, speed and right-first-time manufacturing require synergistic design approaches. In addition, post-build finishing operations of LPBF parts are the object of increasing attention to avoid the risk of bottlenecks in the machining step. An aluminum component for automotive application was redesigned through topology optimization and Design for Additive Manufacturing. Simulation of the build process allowed to choose the orientation and the support location for potential lowest deformation and residual stresses. Design for Finishing was adopted in order to facilitate the machining operations after additive construction. The optical dimensional check proved a good correspondence with the tolerances predicted by process simulation and confirmed part acceptability. A cost and time comparison versus CNC alone attested to the convenience of LPBF unless single parts had to be produced.

Highlights

Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers promising benefits for the production of lightweight automotive components of complex geometry, such as those derived from the process of topology optimization (TO) [1,2,3]
Surface roughness is related to part orientation for two main reasons: the so-called staircase error, which derives from the layer-wise build-up strategy and is deeply influenced by the orientation of surfaces, and the poor surface quality left when supports are removed
There are several case studies in the literature regarding the topological optimization of metal parts obtained by Laser-based Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) [28], this work aims at showcasing the holistic approach by which design and manufacturing considerations can be integrated into the development of products

Summary

Introduction

Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers promising benefits for the production of lightweight automotive components of complex geometry, such as those derived from the process of topology optimization (TO) [1,2,3]. After TO, the industrialization of the redesigned geometry requires its orientation to be optimized within the building volume, which affects distortion and surface finishing [7,8] For the former issue, orientation should be chosen in such a way that the cross-sectional area remains as uniform as possible along with the growth (z) direction, because a sudden change is expected to cause part distortion as a consequence of the high energy that is driven into the component without appropriate heat exchange. Surface roughness is related to part orientation for two main reasons: the so-called staircase error, which derives from the layer-wise build-up strategy and is deeply influenced by the orientation of surfaces, and the poor surface quality left when supports are removed

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