Stiffness management of sheet metal parts using laser metal deposition

摘要

Tailored blanks are established solutions for the production of load-adapted sheet metal components. In the course of the individualization of production, such semi-finished products are gaining importance. In addition to tailored welded blanks and tailored rolled blanks, patchwork blanks have been developed which allow a local increase in sheet thickness by welding, gluing or soldering patches onto sheet metal blanks. Patchwork blanks, however, have several limitations, on the one hand, the limited freedom of design in the production of patchwork blanks and, on the other hand, the fact that there is no optimum material bonding with the substrate. The increasing production of derivative and special vehicles on the basis of standard vehicles, prototype production and the functionalization of components require solutions with which semi-finished products and sheet metal components can be provided flexibly with local thickenings or functional elements with a firm metallurgical bond to the substrate. An alternative to tailored and patchwork blanks is, therefore, a free-form reinforcement applied by additive manufacturing via laser metal deposition (LMD). By combining metal forming and additive manufacturing, stiffness can be adapted to the loads based on standard components in a material-efficient manner and without the need to redesign the forming tools. This paper details a study of the potential of stiffness management by LMD using a demonstrator part. Sizing optimization is performed and part distortion is taken into account to find an optimal design for the cladding. A maximum stiffness increase of 167% is feasible with only 4.7% additional mass. Avoiding part distortion leads to a pareto-optimal design which achieves 95% more stiffness with 6% added mass.