Abstract
Support structures are essential to laser powder bed fusion (PBF-LB/M). They sustain overhangs, prevent distortion, and dissipate process-induced heat. Their removal after manufacturing is required, though, increasing the overall costs. Therefore, optimization is important to increase the economic efficiency of PBF-LB/M. To enable optimization focused on the support structures’ costs, a cost model is developed. The whole production process, including the design, manufacturing, and post-processing of a part, is considered by deriving formulas for the individual costs. The cost model is applied to a previously developed benchmark procedure. Additionally, a case study investigating different support layout strategies is conducted.
Highlights
Laser powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M), known as selective laser melting (SLM), is gaining importance as a manufacturing process in industries with huge demands for lightweight or individualized designs, e.g., aviation, automotive, or medical engineering
It can be seen that the overall cost increases linearly, whereas the cost per part decreases in an exponential manner
Comparing the two support strategies, it is noted that the difference in costs increases with increasing number of parts: At one part per build, the difference in overall cost is 15:30¤ (Part B’s cost is 112% of Part A’s cost), while it is at 93:87¤ for nine parts (Part B’s cost is 118:5% of Part A’s cost)
Summary
Laser powder bed fusion of metals (PBF-LB/M), known as selective laser melting (SLM), is gaining importance as a manufacturing process in industries with huge demands for lightweight or individualized designs, e.g., aviation, automotive, or medical engineering. Despite offering high geometrical flexibility and functionality, PBF-LB/M is characterized by some disadvantages, such as high thermal gradients resulting in critical residual stresses and a restriction on the angle of overhanging features to the build platform, ranging from 30°1 to 45°.2. To deal with these challenges, support structures are applied to the manufacturing setup. To decrease the production costs and enhance the manufacturing capabilities of the PBF-LB/M process, support structure optimization is receiving increasing attention in research. While most studies (Received September 27, 2021; accepted November 16, 2021)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
