The process planning for additive and subtractive hybrid manufacturing of powder bed fusion (PBF) process

Abstract

Additive and subtractive hybrid manufacturing (ASHM) technology has attracted extensive attention in industry and academia because of its vast design freedom and surface accuracy. The powder bed fusion (PBF) process has high forming accuracy, the ASHM of PBF process is more suitable for integrated precision manufacturing of components with complex internal structures. However, existing process planning for ASHM are not suitable for the ASHM of PBF process because of the limitation by the powder bed. This research work focused on planning the process for the ASHM of the PBF process, while dividing it into three stages. Firstly, a model adaptive compensation algorithm is proposed to retain the finish machining allowance. Then, considering tool accessibility and constraint of the powder bed, the compensation model is decomposed into several sub-models and the hybrid manufacturing of sub-models in the sequence of construction. Finally, some unprocessed parts of the internal structure could be re-process after removing the parts from the powder bed. Combined with experiments and examples, this hybrid manufacturing process planning can provide technical support for the integrated precision manufacturing of components with a complex internal structure based on the ASHM of the PBF process.