Description
As additive manufacturing (AM) gains greater industrial exposure, there's a drive toward defining practical, high-value processes and products. Defining viable business cases is critical to ensure successful technology adoption. Focusing on the marine industry and using a "propeller" as a familiar marine object for a case study, we'll explore 4 different design/manufacturing iterations aimed at highlighting the opportunities that AM offers. By fabricating these 4 components with wire and arc additive, a considerable portion of the process chain will be revealed from both hardware and software perspectives. We'll be exploring the designs and investigating design features facilitated by AM; looking at preparing these components for manufacture; seeing how these components are built considering the distortion and stress, geometric fidelity, and thermal management; and, finally, looking at post-processing techniques to bring these components to final form.
Key Learnings
- Understand the 4 main metal high-rate additive manufacturing techniques
- Understand routes for design exploration for both rapid prototyping and rapid production
- Understand opportunities for high-rate additive applications
- Understand manufacturing steps and considerations involved in the production of AM parts