PROGRAMME:
Additive Manufacturing - individualised products, complex mass products, innovative materials
AWARDING AUTHORITY:
Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)
LEAD PARTNER:
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
PERIOD:
January 2017 to December 2019
PARTNERS:
- implantcast GmbH
- Cenit AG
- Leibniz Universität Hannover (Institut für Fertigungstechnik und Werkzeugmaschinen)
- Fraunhofer-Einrichtung für Additive Produktionstechnologien IAPT
- Concept Laser GmbH / GE Additive
- Quast Präzisionstechnik GmbH
Initial Situation:
While additive manufacturing (AM) has many advantages, such as huge freedom of design, resource efficiency and the possibility of function integration, its throughput times are usually high. This is due to the fact that some of the process steps are very time-consuming and are not very efficient. AM consequently has the potential to be improved.
Goals:
The aim of the PROFIT project is therefore to integrate additive manufacturing processes into the industrial process, production and IT chain in order to reduce the throughput time along the entire process chain as well as to lower the cost of additive components. This is to be achieved with the help of various approaches. A data format based on STEP is to be developed that makes it possible to save parametric and attributive information and to use it along the entire process chain. The project also involves the development of a software tool to simplify AM data preparation and the integration of the manufacturing data relating to the AM process into the process chain for the machining post-processing. The aim of this is to reduce the manual programming effort and the post-processing costs. The additive manufacturing process itself is to be examined more closely and optimised.
Process:
First, the data on the interfaces involved along the process chain is to be recorded and the data format is to be tested on CAD systems. The requirements for the functionalities must be defined. Design restrictions are to be determined and an optimisation algorithm for components is to be tested and verified. To increase efficiency and improve the additive process chain including post-processing, various support structures for the selective laser melting (SLM) process as well as clamping concepts are to be tested and machining tests with a robot are to be performed on test specimens. The project’s success will be evaluated using demonstrator components from the aerospace industry.
