Driving Technologies for the Design of Additive Manufacturing Systems

Additive Manufacturing Selective Laser Sintering/Melting Driving Technologies AM Systems Design.

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In recent years, the Additive Manufacturing (AM) technology, belonging to the most comprehensive Net Shape Forming family, has shown a growing trend due to the increasing quality of the built product. These results may open the application of the AM to the industrial field, moving the application from laboratories to the plant floor. This step requires machines capable of executing the technology process of AM with the requirements of the industrial environment, concerning, for example, production speed, reliability, robustness, and process stability. The design of such a type of machinery requires a systematic and multidisciplinary approach to reach these industrial targets. Indeed, the AM process involves several design technological issues, like temperature control of the material to be processed, characteristics of the energy source for material transition, control of the power transferred to the material, scanning system's head control, 3D model's layer definition, and generation of the laser point's trajectories. The final product's quality strongly depends on all these aspects, which are synergically linked to each other, as well as on the technical solutions to realize them. The paper presents an interdisciplinary approach to the design of machines for AM, based on the Powder Bed Fusion process and targeted at the industrial field. The technological platforms discussed in the paper are essential for such types of machines. The strategy proposed constitutes a base reference point for the definition of a methodological approach to the design of AM machinery.

 

Doi: 10.28991/HIJ-2021-02-01-03

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