Incremental manufacturing platform for the fabrication of lightweight high-strength aluminum vehicle structures

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Metal additive manufacturing has today demonstrated a strong potential for producing small-dimension (= 1m), very complex parts, offering increased performance with a major saving in weight (up to 80% for certain parts), especially when coupled with topological optimization techniques for the design of parts. Unfortunately, the current processes involving the melting of materials are limited for large components using high strength aluminum alloys, thus limiting their use. Cold spray is a technique for depositing material in the solid state capable of depositing with very few constraints, benefiting in particular from a high deposition rate (several kg / h). Its other advantages make this technique particularly attractive for overcoming the limitations of fusion based additive manufacturing processes. The McGill University-NRC cold spray facility, created in 2007, has positioned itself as a world leader in the development of additive manufacturing by cold spray of all metals. However, significant challenges remain in applying this process on a large scale and in physically and economically viable ways with aluminum alloys of interest to the transport industry, e.g. Al 6061 or Al7075.This project, which brings together the NRC, McGill University, ETS and members of the industrial group of METALTec, aims to develop and demonstrate the potential of additive manufacturing by cold spraying for large components (up to several meters in length) using high performance aluminum alloys. The project will focus in particular on the implementation of an innovative solution for the cold spraying of high performance aluminum alloys, while developing material and digital solutions to measure, model and control the evolution of geometry, online, of the 3D part to be produced. The success of this project will be based on the combination of McGill-NRC's expertise in cold spraying, NRC's expertise in process simulation and 3D vision and ETS's knowledge in metrology mechanical simulation. The project is connected with industry via the more than 29 METALTec members forming a network around metal fabrication for the transport industry, covering the entire value chain, from raw materials finished products, in Quebec, Canada and international.