No abstract

No abstract

As an alternative to powder-bed based processes, metal parts can be additively manufactured by extrusion based additive manufacturing. In this process, a highly filled polymer filament is deposited and subsequently debindered and sintered. Choosing a proper orientation of the part that satisfies the requirements of the debinding and sintering processes is crucial for a successful manufacturing process. To determine the optimal orientation for debinding, first, the part must be scaled in order to compensate the sinter induced shrinkage. Then, a finite element analysis is performed to verify that the maximum stresses due to the dead load do not exceed the critical stress limits. To ease this selection process, an approach based on open source software is shown in this article to efficiently determine a part’s optimal orientation during debinding. This automates scaling, debinding simulation, and postprocessing for all six main directions. The presented automated simulation framework is examined on three application examples and provides plausible results in a technical context for all example parts, leading to more robust part designs and a reduction of experimental trial and error. Therefore, the presented framework is a useful tool in the product development process for metal extrusion additive manufacturing applications.

A new approach for the analysis of high pressure die casting geometries concerning form filling is introduced. It enables the reduction of simulation cycles needed in the product development process, as they are highly time and cost intensive. Therefore, we developed an analysis tool, which uses shortest paths from each part of the geometry to the chosen ingate surfaces. This way, and by evaluating the information given by basic filling simulations, we can evaluate the usability of a given geometry for a high pressure die casting process and are able to suggest useful strategies to place ingates and to design a filling system.

No abstract

Actual sophisticated development processes are conducted by the use of multiple computer-aided tools (CAx-tools) to accelerate product development. However, because of below optimal simulation strategies and procedure guidelines mainly for complex materials and loading the development process is constricted and hence sluggish. The main emphasis of the article is to show how Intelligent CROsslinked Simulations (ICROS) methodical approach can be used to handle complex processes supported by specific computer techniques employed. Development of an elastomer insert subassembly for a standard claw coupling is used as an example of such a complex process.

Lightweight construction is playing an increasingly important role for a wide variety of reasons, such as improving energy efficiency. In addition to lightweight material construction, lightweight structure construction is gaining more and more influence, which is made possible due to topology optimization. The aim of topology optimization is to develop an optimal design proposal based on a construction space model and given boundary conditions (e.g. mechanical or thermal). The calculation of the structural response is often done using the time consuming finite element method (FEM). Since topology optimization is an iterative process, usually many finite element analyses (FEA) have to be performed, which results in high computing time. Therefore, this article presents different methods to minimize computing time by exploiting various special features that occur with FEA in the context of optimizations.

Topology optimization is a powerful digital engineering tool for the development of lightweight products. Nevertheless, the transition of obtained design proposals into manufacturable parts is still a challenging task. In this article, the development of a freeware framework is shown, which uses a hybrid topology optimization algorithm for stiffness and strength combined with manufacturing constraints based on finite spheres and a two-step smoothing algorithm to design manufacturable prototypes with “one click”. The presented workflow is shown in detail on a rocker, which is “one-click”-optimized and manufactured. These parts were experimentally tested using a universal testing machine. The objective of this article was to investigate the performance of “one-click”-optimized parts in comparison with manually redesigned optimized parts and the initial design space. The test results show that the design proposals created while applying the finite-spheres and two-step smoothing are equal to the manual redesigned parts based on the optimization results, proposing that the “one-click”-development can be used for the fast and direct development and fabrication of prototypes.