Session: 02-01-01: 7th Annual Conference-Wide Symposium on Additive Manufacturing: Metals I

Paper Number: 95560

95560 - Hybrid Manufacturing Decomposition Rules and Programming Strategies for Service Parts 

Introduction: Today for service parts, production runs are ‘on demand’, and having the inventory for sub-components and the tooling is expensive. Service parts may be required to be available for several products over an extensive time period. For the automobile industry, service components may be required for 20 year old products. Either they must be stored, or the tooling required to manufacture the components is in inventory. The main purpose of this research is to determine whether a directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing (AM) solution can be used to manufacture selected components that are presently cast, stamped, or forged using hybrid manufacturing build solutions (a combination of DED AM and machining solutions). AM will be used to fabricate a near net shape, and either final machining or interspersed machining operations are included. The process planning strategies, including component redesign, decomposition approaches, build times and material usage are assessed. Redesigning the components to facilitate the manufacturing process and optimizing the design is explored.

Methodology: This research includes sets of casting, stamping, and forging case studies to demonstrate the challenges with a hybrid manufacturing strategy. The decomposition rules and programming strategies for AM DED and machining tool paths are discussed in context of the model geometry, and the additive, and subtractive manufacturing capabilities. The challenges include but are not limited to building complex designs that have thin walls, and building overhanging geometry without introducing any support material and collisions when using multi-axis build solutions. The solutions include but are not limited to the use appropriate build planes, tool tilts, variable slice thicknesses, and design changes to introduce effective build solutions. The additive and subtractive toolpaths are created using commercial machining software and AM process planning software. Available tools in the software such as backplot and machine simulation are used to determine potential collision zones (which are re-programmed) and to verify martial deposition and removal. Ideally, select components will be validated by industrial hybrid manufacturing machines.

Preliminary results and conclusions: Hybrid manufacturing is a good solution for low volume component fabrication and complex designs, but a direct translation for a component designed to be cast, stamped, or forged may be problematic. Design changes might be necessary based on the machining or DED limitations. Although novel strategies are used in this research, this is an ongoing research challenge for introducing new process planning approaches. For example, design rules for common challenges such as building a hollow box with holes on each side are introduced. This geometry can be readily sand cast using cores, but is challenging to build with AM without support structures.

The novelty and contribution: This research is desirable for many reasons as there is the potential for material savings in addition to inventory management savings. Multi-axis hybrid manufacturing build solutions studied in this research introduce new opportunities, but there can be problems when fabricating a component designed to be manufactured in a process other than AM.  

Presenting Author: Hamoon Ramezani Camufacturing Solution Inc.

Presenting Author Biography: Hamoon Ramezani has a M.A.Sc in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Windsor and a bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering. He has experience in CAD, CAE, Additive Manufacturing, and the automotive industry.

Authors:

Ruth Jill Urbanic University of Windsor
Bob Hedrick Camufacturing Solutions Inc
Hamoon Ramezani Camufacturing Solution Inc.
Sandy El Moghazi CAMufacturing Solutions
Marzie Saghafi University of Windsor