Additive Manufacturing

Rapid Prototyping
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKnlmfuMSgo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRMF9lC0tXs
Advantages
How It Works

Process Steps
Modeling

CAD Model
 .STL format

What Is An STL File?: STereoLithography

The STL file format has become the Rapid Prototyping industry's defacto
standard data transmission format, and is the format required to interact with
Quickparts/3D printer.

This format approximates the surfaces of a solid model with triangles.

For a simple model such as the box shown in figure 1, its surfaces can be
approximated with twelve triangles, as shown in figure 2.

The more complex the surface, the more triangles produced, as shown in
figure 3.
 Support Structures

Part

Support structures
The program may also generate an auxiliary
structure to support the model during the build.

Supports are useful for delicate or thin features like

overhangs, internal cavities, and thin walled sections
Slicing
 Slicing
A 3D slicer is a piece of software, running on a computer. It acts like an
interpreter for your 3D printer. You feed it a 3D file, usually, that's an STL, M3F
or OBJ file (which describe coordinates in a three-dimensional grid).

Slicer software is the tool you need to convert a 3D model into printing
instructions for your 3D printer.

It cuts the model into horizontal slices (layers), generates toolpaths to fill them
and calculates the amount of material to be extruded.
Tool Path
Building the part (Layer by
Layer)
Post Processing
(Clean and Finish the part)
Schematic of implant fabrication

Ear Model After operation After 1 year

Classification of AM processes
Electron Beam Melting
 Laser Engineered Net Shaping (LENS) With out Ultrasonic
 The powder stream delivered by argon gas
converged at the focal point of the laser beam and
then formed into a solid layer.
 After one layer deposition, the deposition head
elevated one layer thickness for next layer
deposition until the designed part was completed.
 The utilization of ultrasonic vibration led to more
uniform shape, flatter outline, less pores and
micro-cracks, and finer microstructures of the
LENS-fabricated parts.

With Ultrasonic

UV-Ultrasonic Vibration
Electron Beam Melting (EBM)
 Numerous applications in aerospace, automotive
and medical/orthopaedic implant industries
 During the EBM processing, each slice is divided
into two regions, i.e. contours and squares.
 Initially the boundaries of the parts (act as
counters) are fabricated which acts as an
interface between the part and the surrounding
metallic powder.
 After this the required part was built within these
contours, normally referred as squares.
 The process is performed under vacuum
condition to eliminate impurities and yields high
strength properties of the finished part.
 The part after its fabrication is transferred to a
special blast chamber with a pow-der recovery
system (PRS) where all the excess powder is
removed.
 Further, processes such as milling, turning,
polishing and grinding can be used for surface
treatment of EBM parts
Commercial AM techniques, their
Manufacturers and Material Providers
Summary
Design for Additive Manufacturing

 Material Considerations
 General design considerations
 Support structure design
Materials for AM

Metals: Titanium, steel,aluminum, gold, silver

Polymers: poly-ethylene (PE), poly-propylene (PP), poly-ethylene-
terephthalate(PET), poly-vinyl-chloride (PVC), PMMA etc.
Ceramics: alumina zircon dioxide, bio-glass, titanium oxide
Shape memory alloys: NiTi
 Metal Powder and their characteristics
SLS, LENS, EBM, DMLS, SLM, etc., are those AM techniques which utilize metal
powders for the development of functional and non-functional prototypes.
 Metal Powder and their characteristics

Issues with quality of powders:

Part surface roughness, damage tolerance, inferior

fatigue & tensile strength, sensitively affected by
subtle changes to the chemistry and microstructure

Metal powders characterized using

the following techniques
Design Considerations

©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. M P Groover, Principles of Modern Manufacturing 5/e
Design Considerations

©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. M P Groover, Principles of Modern Manufacturing 5/e
Design Considerations
Benchmarks
 Three types of benchmark parts are used for design
evaluation

 Geometric benchmark: used to evaluate geometrical quality

of features generated by a certain machine
 Checks for Accuracy, precision, surface finish and
repeatability through manufacture of blocks, cylinders,
prisms
 Mechanical Benchmarks- used to compare the mechanical
properties of features generated
 coupons produced are tested to evaluate quantitative
mechanical properties under certain material/process
combination
 Process Benchmark used to develop optimum process
parameters for features and geometries generated by
certain process systems
Design Considerations

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Process Parameters
AM free forms difficult to Inspect
AM Modeling
Link between modeling and simulation of
process to performance

Process parameters (e.g., laser power, scan speed, scan direction, material, powder size, and layer thickness)
and the microstructure (e.g., porosity, grain structure, surface roughness, precipitates, voids, defects, and residual stress)
IMPACTS Mechanical properties and performance (e.g., strength, fatigue life, ductility, hardness, and toughness)
Design of Support Structures
 Support structure is an integral part for many AM
processes, and the design of support structure is no trivial
task.
 The fabrication of support structure usually cause
additional time and materials
 The removal of support structures requires additional
processes and poses additional design constraints to the
parts
 They are required due to
 the existence of the buoyancy force and the shrinkage
induced distortion
 to counter the thermal residual stresses generated
during the melting–solidification processes and gravity
necessitate the need for support structures
 Due to large temperature gradients that are generated
during the fabrication process
 to ensure the quality and accuracy of the parts
 features with overhanging angle of over 45° require
support structures (C and D) Typical geometries that
require support structures
 features that are unsupported and have large
overhanging areas
 Design of Support Structures

Typical support geometries for metal powder bed fusion

Support generation for a universal joint

Transition layer design for cellular supports