SELECTION OF PART ORIENTATION FOR MULTI-AXIS HYBRID MANUFACTURING PROCESS

In regular 3 axis layered manufacturing processes, the build direction is fixed throughout the process. Multi-axis laser (more than 3-axis motion) deposition process, the orientation of the part can affect the non-support buildability in the multi-axis hybrid manufacturing process. However, each orientation that satisfies the buildability and other constraints may not be unique. In this case, the final optimal orientation is determined based on build time. The build time computation algorithm for multi-axis hybrid system is presented in this paper. To speed up the exhaustive search for the optimal orientation, a multi-stage algorithm is developed to reduce the search space.