Additive manufacturing of complex products by dsm-based analysis of architectures

Additive Manufacturing (AM), colloquially known as 3-D Printing, refers to a set of emerging technologies that offer unique capabilities that conventional manufacturing methods cannot provide, such as the ability to produce arbitrarily complex geometries without expensive customized tooling. However, this design freedom is countered by build envelope (size) and production rate (speed) constraints characteristic of most commercially available AM equipment. This limits AM applications to small subcomponents in low-volume, high-value industries. While some concepts exist for manufacture of more complex products (e.g., "3-D printed car"), most functionality of such products (e.g., engine) is still produced using traditional manufacturing technologies. So how can the cost and efficiency benefits of AM be realized in developing complex products? Due to the capabilities and constraints of AM, the architecture of these products is likely to be vastly different from equivalent products designed for traditional manufacturing. This paper presents an approach for architecting complex additively manufactured products using the design structure matrix (DSM), a methodology that is capable of mapping out components and interfaces at the system level. By building and manipulating a DSM of a proof-of-concept product, various architectures are explored taking into account size and structural constraints of additively manufactured components and interfaces.

Additive manufacturing of complex products by dsm-based analysis of architectures Conference Paper