Additive manufacturing processes have shown promise for manufacturing aerospace components affordably and efficiently. Aerospace parts are prime candidates for additive manufacturing techniques due to their unique processing capabilities, while minimizing input material and cycle time. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) is planning the development of a new, innovative, simulation-based, cost analysis tool to provide a cost assessment of additive manufacturing operations including parameters such as process cycle times, throughput, and yield. This simulation environment facilitates the efficient development of cost models for finished parts having the capability for including additional operations such as grinding and inspection. An enhanced manufacturing cost analysis capability provides an opportunity for the transition of affordable, additive manufacturing processed components from the laboratory into production. AM methods provide the potential to revolutionize the design and development of advanced aerospace systems, such as the gas turbine engine. Innovative AM process under development offer the potential to manufacture highly sophisticated and detailed parts and components that are characteristic of the advanced turbine-based propulsion systems being developed today. Advances in AM methods are currently focused on the development of and the understanding of the processes themselves. While there is a high potential for AM to reduce costs compared to conventional manufacturing methods, there has been little effort devoted to completely understanding the cost aspects of AM. More efforts focused on investigating and developing cost modeling methods for AM are desperately needed. One of the primary obstacles to wider acceptance and transitioning of AM processes into production is the inadequacy of current cost modeling approaches. Typical cost analysis and modeling techniques based on comparative and process-oriented estimating address some aspects of the AM process but fail to account for the impacts of complex, non-linear relationships between process elements. Improvements in data management and the development of comprehensive yet flexible simulation models offer a path toward a better understanding of AM process cost. The new simulation-based analysis tools under consideration by AFRL have the potential to provide a key to higher utilization of AM processes for manufacturing a wider range of aerospace components. This could be realized through higher fidelity cost estimating and forecasting capability offered by simulation models closely correlated with the process under development. Simulation modeling should offer additional analysis capabilities not limited only to cost analysis, the new tools under consideration w ill be designed to assist in measuring and furthering process development. The capability for assessing cycle times, capacities, throughput, and efficiencies w ill be present in the system to enable expedited production transition for AM processes and, ultimately improved affordability of the finished parts.
Simulation-based cost analysis tool for additive manufacturing processes
2014
16 Seiten, Bilder, Tabellen, 9 Quellen
Conference paper
Storage medium
English