Functionally Determinated Additive Manufacturing

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Burkhard Corves; Professor Dr.-Ing. Georg Jacobs; Professor Dr. Leif Kobbelt
• Subject Area: Production Automation and Assembly Technology ; Mechanics
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 513808244

Additive Manufacturing (AM) offers the opportunity to leave many limitations of conventional manufacturing processes behind. However, AM processes also bring new constraints and challenges for design, process preparation and the production of functional component geometries. Components are created as growing solid bodies by successively adding material in a given build direction. The layer-by-layer manufacturing strategy imprints anisotropic behavior on the component and severely limits the printability of complex geometries, since unfavorable force states and poorly printable active surfaces generally cannot be avoided by the design. The superior research hypothesis for the described project is: Through a cross-disciplinary function-oriented, multi-directional and layerless product development process, component geometries optimized for additive manufacturing can be designed and manufactured in a load-oriented manner and with functionally optimized active surfaces. The overall objective of the project is to harness the full potential of AM by establishing a continuous product development process (PDP) consisting of design process, process preparation and manufacturing and by further developing the Fused Layer Modelling (FLM) process into a multi-directional and layerless manufacturing process. Subgoals 1. The aim of the design is the functionally determined component design for additive manufacturing. The function of a component is represented by its active surfaces and its guiding-support structure. The degrees of freedom of AM allow the design of a component to be consistently aligned with the required active surfaces and structural features. The prerequisite is a function-oriented, model-based development process that places the active surfaces and structural features in the foreground and considers the AM-specific manufacturing restrictions. 2. The goal of process preparation is an algorithm that calculates the necessary extrusion trajectories for force-path-optimized manufacturing from the initially process-independent component description of the design, considering process-specific boundary conditions and the manipulator used. 3. The goal of manufacturing is a prototypical 6D printing and handling process that applies extrusion strands in a spatially and load-optimized manner and can flexibly grip, hold and guide the resulting component. This manufacturing process is realized by a demonstrator consisting of a fixed print head and a robot. The fixed print head ensures that extrusion strands are always applied in a flat position (horizontal to the print surface). The planning of the robot trajectory allows continuous manipulation of the component by the robot under the print head with maximized freedom.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants