A Design for Qualification Framework for the Development of Additive Manufacturing Components—A Case Study from the Space Industry

Abstract

Additive Manufacturing (AM) provides several benefits for aerospace companies in terms of efficient and innovative product development. However, due to the general lack of AM process understanding, engineers face many uncertainties related to product qualification during the design of AM components. The aim of this paper is to further the understanding of how to cope with the need to develop process understanding, while at the same time designing products that can be qualified. A qualitative action research study has been performed, using the development of an AM rocket engine turbine demonstrator as a case study. The results show that the qualification approach should be developed for the specific application, dependent on the AM knowledge within the organization. AM knowledge is not only linked to the AM process but to the complete AM process chain. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the manufacturing chain during design and to develop necessary knowledge concurrently with the product in order to define suitable requirements. The paper proposes a Design for Qualification framework, supported by six design tactics. The framework encourages proactive consideration for qualification and the capabilities of the AM process chain, as well as the continuous development of AM knowledge during product development.

Design Approach for Additive Manufacturing of a Dynamically Functioning System: Lifeboat Hook

“…Thus, a notion of dual-DfAM which is a combination of opportunistic and restrictive DfAM, was first named in [7]. Dual-DfAM is a practical method that can be selected when adopting AM instead of replacing with or optimizing for AM [9]. AM designing includes a particular feature to cover not only a component (C-DfAM) but also assembly-level products (A-DfAM) [7].…”

Test artefacts for additive manufacturing: A design methodology review

“…This method leads to a robust feature-based characterisation of an AM process and machine. Rupal et al applied their methodology on a case study engine bracket part shown in Figure 5 Dordlova et al [25,26] investigate a design-for-qualification artefact design guideline for space applications. Indeed, aforementioned guidelines aim at validating geometrical definition and tolerancing (GD&T) or providing methodology to qualify AM process and machine performances.…”

Design Automation for Additive Manufacturing : A Multi-Disciplinary Optimization Approach

“…The framework is proposed to be holistic by including geometry updates, functional verification, manufacturing and post-processing setup, and verification in an automatic context. Recent work focused on a holistic DfAM process include (Vaneker et al, 2020) (Dordlofva, 2020b). However, none of these authors conduct a formal holistic mathematical optimization including both product and process parameters as optimization variables.…”