Pro2AMech: Computer aided product and process parameter design of additively manufac-tured non-assembly mechanisms

附加制造技术(AM)的主要特点是设计自由度大，批量大小与制造成本无关，另外还提供了在单一制造步骤中制造可移动机构的可能性。因此，随后的组装步骤变得可有可无，从而导致相当大的成本降低。然而，与传统制造技术相比，AF工艺仍然存在几何精度和公差较低的缺点。这些主要依赖于工艺和设备。此外，缺乏可靠和全面的信息，特别是对于在工业环境中有效使用的FDM制造的非装配机械的设计和生产。尽管前一个资助阶段为通过统计扭矩分析对附加制造的和受间隙影响的关节齿轮的运动行为进行虚拟验证奠定了基础，但仍然缺乏一种全面的方法，用于后续综合来改进这些机构。目前，这项工作都是手工完成的，没有进一步的支持系统，这使得特别是没有AM经验的产品开发人员面临着迭代和成本密集型的过程。因此，本研究项目的目标是支持没有AM特定知识的产品开发人员通过一个全面的支持系统来改进附加制造的非装配机构的产品和工艺参数设计。除了通过考虑与工艺有关的对机制运行行为的影响来扩展和调整第一个供资阶段产生的现有统计公差分析之外，制定改进产品和工艺参数设计的方法是主要重点。为此目的，开发了基于面向添加制造的设计来改进名义产品设计的方法，并在商业CAD系统中实现。为了改进工艺参数设计，在前处理的范围内改进了现有的优化几何精度、可达公差和制造时间等目标的方法，如自适应切片和非平面打印，并在此基础上开发了新的方法。最后，开发的方法将在通用跨学科软件演示器的帮助下连接到支持系统中，并得到验证，其适用性将在用户研究中进行评估。因此，产品开发人员可以在产品和工艺参数的设计、功能分析和随后的附加、非装配机构的生产中以广泛自动化的方式得到支持，以最终使其能够在工业环境中应用。

Additive manufacturing techniques (AM) are mainly characterized by their great freedom of design and batch size independent manufacturing costs and additionally offer the possibility to manufac-ture movable mechanisms in a single manufacturing step. A subsequent assembly step becomes thereby dispensable and thus leads to a considerable cost reduction. However, AF processes still have the disadvantage that lower geometric accuracies and tolerances can be achieved com-pared to conventional manufacturing technologies. These are mostly process- and equipment dependent. Additionally, reliable and comprehensive information is missing especially for the de-sign and production of FDM-manufactured, non-assembly mechanics to be used effectively in an industrial context.Although the previous funding phase created a basis for the virtual validation of the motion be-havior of additively manufactured and clearance-affected joint gears by means of statistical toler-ance analysis, there is still a lack of a comprehensive method for a subsequent synthesis to im-prove these mechanisms. At present, this is done manually and without further support by a sup-port system, thus confronting especially AM-inexperienced product developers with an iterative and cost-intensive process.Therefore, it is the goal of this research project to support product developers without AM-specific knowledge in improving the product and process parameter design of additively manufactured, non-assembly mechanisms by a comprehensive support system. In addition to the extension and adaptation of the available statistical tolerance analysis resulting from the first funding phase by considering process-related influences on the operating behaviour of the mechanisms, the devel-opment of methods for the improvement of the product and process parameter design is the main focus. For this purpose, methods for improving the nominal product design in terms of the Design for Additive Manufacturing are developed and implemented in commercial CAD systems. For the improvement of the process parameter design, existing approaches like e. g. Adaptive Slicing and Non-planar Printing for the optimization of different objectives such as geometric accuracy, achievable tolerances and build time are improved within the scope of pre-processing and new methods are developed on this basis. Finally, the developed methods will be linked in a support system with the help of a common, interdisciplinary software demonstrator and validated and their applicability will be evaluated in user studies. Thus, product developers can be supported in a widely automated way in the design of the product and process parameters, the functional analy-sis and the subsequent production of additive, non-assembly mechanisms, in order to finally ena-ble its application in the industrial context.