Design for Additive Manufacturing and for Machining in the Automotive Field

High cost, unpredictable defects and out-of-tolerance rejections in final parts are preventing the complete deployment of Laser-based Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) on an industrial scale. Repeatability, speed and right-first-time manufacturing require synergistic design approaches. In addition, post-build finishing operations of LPBF parts are the object of increasing attention to avoid the risk of bottlenecks in the machining step. An aluminum component for automotive application was redesigned through topology optimization and Design for Additive Manufacturing. Simulation of the build process allowed to choose the orientation and the support location for potential lowest deformation and residual stresses. Design for Finishing was adopted in order to facilitate the machining operations after additive construction. The optical dimensional check proved a good correspondence with the tolerances predicted by process simulation and confirmed part acceptability. A cost and time comparison versus CNC alone attested to the convenience of LPBF unless single parts had to be produced.

Experimental Examination of Process Parameters During Fabrication and Machining of Powder Metallurgy Aluminum Component

The present study aims at investigating the effect of process characteristics during fabrication and machining of powder metallurgy (PM) Aluminium cylindrical components. The application of the machining process as an alternate manufacturing process to fabricate the PM Aluminium components for industrial use with desired shape and size is explored. The PM Aluminium cylindrical components were fabricated by compacting the Aluminium metal powder within the compaction dies under various values of compaction load, sintering temperature and sintering time. These PM components were then machined under different standard cutting velocity and tangential cutting velocity, surface roughness data were analyzed. After the investigation it was concluded that, higher values of compaction load, sintering time and sintering temperature leads to higher values of relative density and relative hardness of the sintered Aluminum component. Again from machining results it can be stated that, higher values of fabricating parameters have a higher significance on performance parameters.

Formation of Intermetallic Structures by Spark Plasma Sintering of Titanium and Aluminum Powders

Sintered compacts fabricated by spark plasma sintering (SPS) at 1050оС were investigated. Titanium and aluminum powders in a ratio of 25 % (at.) and 75 % (at.) respectively were chosen as starting materials. Powder mixture heating up to elevated temperatures led to a partial loss of an aluminum component and to the formation of a multiphase structure consisting of Al3Ti, Al2Ti, AlTi and AlTi3. The density of sintered powder mixtures was 3.7 g/cm3; an average microhardness value was about 470 HV.