BUILD DIRECTION FOR IMPROVED PROCESS PLAN IN MULTI-MATERIAL ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

摘要

Current additive manufacturing processes mostly accustomed with mono-material process plan algorithm to build object layer by layer. However, building a multi-material or heterogeneous object with an additive manufacturing system is fairly new but emerging concept. Unlike mono-material object, heterogeneous object contains multiple features or inhomogeneous architecture and can be decomposed into two dimensional heterogeneous layers with islands where each island represents associated feature's properties. The material deposition path-plan in such multi-feature/multi-contour layers requires more resources and may affect the part integrity, quality, and build time. A novel framework is presented in this paper to determine the optimum build direction for heterogeneous object by differentiating the slice based on the resources requirement. Slices are bundled based on the heterogeneity and the effect of build directions are quantified considering the feature characteristics and manufacturing attributes. The proposed methodology is illustrated by examples with 50% or more homogeneous slices along the optimum build direction. The outcome would certainly benefit the process plan for multi-material additive manufacturing techniques.