COMPONENTS RESIDUAL STRESS AND DEFORMATION REDUCTION: AN INTEGRATED PROCESS DESIGN FOR ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a key technology in current industrial transformations thanks to the significant benefits that can bring to high-level sectors. Nevertheless, AM-based design approaches require improvements that are fundamental to exploit the potentials of the technology and reduce the lack of process consistency. This work focuses on integrated Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) approaches for product-process design, to meet both functional and technological targets. The key aspects of process design and issues are summarized and the design method to perform metal AM process optimization is presented. The aim is therefore to minimize process-induced defects and flaws ofAM-based manufacturing of metal products, such as residual stress and distortions. The approach consists of industrialization task improvement based on modelling optimization and build optimization sub phases supported by numerical process simulation. Integration of CAD platforms allows embedding these steps to be performed downstream of the product design, which can be achieved through functional or multifunctional optimization techniques as well (e.g. topology optimization, latticing, graded structures/materials). The design method is finally applied to perform the industrialization phase of a high-performance automotive component. The case study is a formula SAE topology optimized brake caliper to be produced by Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process. Process simulation-driven studies on modelling and build preparation subphases (i.e. orientation definition, supports generation, model distortion compensation) are conducted to support the process design. The study demonstrates the part scale level method's suitability to industrial context to improve industrialization in the redesign of components to be produced by metal AM.