Design & Print - Using additive manufacturing to digitally produce components approved for the aerospace industry

Initial Situation:

Industrial robots are already allowing conventional manual tasks to be replaced by the automated, mechanical removal of support contours and smoothing of surfaces on additively manufactured components. Although digital technologies capable of selecting suitable support contours on the basis of a geometrical shape's complexity and process parameters already exist for use in post-processing, a great deal of preparatory work is required for complex geometrical shapes that are difficult to access. In the future, this preparatory work should be almost entirely eliminated thanks to the digital planning of a tool centre point with innovative tools and processing strategies using industrial robots.

Goals:

The implementation of the entire concept will lead to the creation of an automated, digitalised robot cell for the post-processing of additively manufactured components made from metal. This will make a significant contribution to the optimisation of aerospace components in the context of the challenges presented by digitalisation and Industry 4.0.

Process:

In this project, toolcraft is focusing primarily on implementing the software and hardware for the planned robot cell. Work package 1 involves collaborating as a consortium to define the component requirements. Typical obstacles to using additive manufacturing in terms of mechanical distortion, de-powdering, the removal of support contours and quality assurance will be taken into account, with toolcraft assisting users with the design work. Finally, work package 3 consists of the conceptual design of the robot cell's system architecture, including sequence control and the cell's digital twin.