Additive Refurbishment of a Vibration-Loaded Structural Component

Abstract

In the event of damage to additively manufactured components whose shape cannot be produced by machining, an additive repair can potentially be not only ecologically but also ecologically more favorable than the production of a new component. In addition, a number of hurdles that otherwise often impede the use of additive repair, e.g. the availability of the material of the damaged component for the additive process, are eliminated. As far as the authors are aware, this publication is the first to present a process for the additive refurbishment of additively manufactured components using the example of a wheel carrier. In this context, the possibility of increasing the fatigue strength of a structural component in refurbishment is discussed for the first time. To increase the fatigue strength of the wheel carrier, the chosen approach is to integrate the effect of particle damping into the component. Particularly in the case of components subjected to bending stresses, the effect of particle damping can be integrated into the component's interior without having to accept a significant loss of strength.

Design of Particle Dampers for Laser Powder Bed Fusion

“…One possibility to increase the damping in laser beam melted structural components is to integrate the effect of particle damping [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. By means of particle dampers, produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), vibrations can be reduced by more than a factor of 20 in some cases [7,10,12].…”

“…In the field of additive manufacturing, especially in powder bed-based processes, the effect of particle damping represents a hitherto little-researched but very effective method for reducing vibrations [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]. Particle dampers produced by laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) can reduce vibrations by more than a factor of 20 in a wide frequency range [7,10,12].…”

“…In the field of product development, the use of additively manufactured particle dampers offers potential by solving the conflict between high stiffness and high damping [7,8,11]. For example, particles can be integrated in the area of the neutral fibre and components can be optimised in terms of mass, stiffness and damping.…”

Knowledge-Based Assistance System for Part Preparation in Additive Repair by Laser Powder Bed Fusion

“…In addition, component areas can be determined which must be cut off because they are modified as part of the additive refurbishment. In the case of the wheel carrier, particle-filled cavities shall be introduced in the area near the tie rod connection to increase the fatigue strength of the wheel carrier, as described by Ganter et al (2021b). For this purpose, a cuboid is extruded in this part area and named "Refurbishment".…”