Abstract
Through its unique characteristics, additive manufacturing yields great potential for designing fluid components with increased performance characteristics. These potentials in advanced design, functional structure, and manufacturing are not easily realized. Therefore, the present study proposes a holistic development methodology for fluid components with a specific focus on hydraulic manifolds. The methodology aims to lead the designer from the specification of the task, through a step-by-step embodied design, to a technical and economic evaluation of the optimized, first-time manufactured part. A case study applies the proposed methodology to a part of a rail-vehicle braking application. Through its application, a significant reduction in weight, size, as well as significant contributions to the company’s AM strategy can be assigned to the part. At the same time, increased direct manufacturing costs are identified. Based on the increased performance characteristics of the resulting design and the holistic foundation of the subsequent economic decisions, a satisfying efficiency can be allocated to the proposed methodology.
Highlights
Additive manufacturing (AM) describes all manufacturing processes in which the part is fabricated by adding volume elements layer by layer to produce the desired geometry.The added elements are directly derived from the 3D data [1]
The proposed development methodology was applied to a safety-critical brake application of Knorr-Bremse rail vehicle systems (KB), which is a founding member of the innovation network “Mobility goes Additive”
Of all application fields of AM, new customer products with advanced design require the highest effort for technological qualification while entailing the highest customer value
Summary
Additive manufacturing (AM) describes all manufacturing processes in which the part is fabricated by adding volume elements layer by layer to produce the desired geometry.The added elements are directly derived from the 3D data [1]. Through the given geometric freedom, new potentials in the performance and economic efficiency of the product are enabled, which can be realized through advanced design If such a design can consolidate multiple parts of an assembly, additional improvements in size, weight, and assembly effort are achievable [3]. In the LPBF manufacturing process, differences in the individual geometry of parts manufactured in one build job have minor influence on the economics of the build job compared to conventional manufacturing methods. This leads to an economic feasibility of a lot size of one and makes the technology practical for highly customized products [4]
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