Towards an Integrated Data Schema Design for Additive Manufacturing: Conceptual Modeling

Abstract

Large amounts of data are generated, exchanged, and used during an additive manufacturing (AM) build. While the AM data from a single build is essential for establishing part traceability, when methodically collected, the full processing history of thousands of components can be mined to advance our understanding of AM processes. Hence, this full body of data must be captured, stored, and properly managed for easy query and analysis. An innovative, AM-specific data model is necessary for establishing of a comprehensive AM information management system. This paper introduces our work towards designing a complete and integrated data model for AM processes. We begin by defining the scope and specifying the requirements of such a data schema. We investigate how information created and exchanged in the AM process chain is identified based on an AM process activity diagram. A comprehensive survey shows that existing AM standards are unable to provide both the breadth and the depth needed for an integrated AM information model. We propose a conceptual design for an additive manufacturing integrated data model, AMIDM, based on a well-defined product lifecycle management (PLM) data modeling method called PPR (product, process, and resource). The proposed AM model has a core scheme composed of product, process, and resource entities. The process entities play critical roles in transforming product input into product output using assigned resources such as equipment, material, personnel, and software tools. The proposed model has been applied to an information system design for Powder Bed Fusion based AM experimental data management. An XML (eXtensible Markup Language) schema is presented in the paper to demonstrate the effectiveness of the conceptual model.