Quantitative Analysis Report: Additive Manufacturing Optimization

This report, titled "Optimizing of additive manufacturing process over traditional process & its procedure," presents a quantitative analysis of additive manufacturing (AM) in comparison to traditional manufacturing methods. It begins by outlining the problem, which includes the challenges of AM such as limitations in size, consistency in quality, scalability, material costs, and multi-material capabilities. The report then introduces a hypothesis suggesting AM's potential to decouple artifact design from production. It defines key terms and discusses assumptions, delimitations, and the importance of the study. A literature review provides background on AM's growth and its advantages, including cost-effectiveness and flexibility. The report examines the purpose of the study, guiding questions, data collection and treatment methods, and research methodologies. It also addresses potential cyber security threats and STL file errors. The conclusion emphasizes the need for testing and trial after the end product has been created, and also highlights the sustainability concerns associated with AM. The report is contributed by a student and published on Desklib, a platform offering AI-powered study tools.

“Optimizing of additive manufacturing process over traditional process & its procedure”
Arunkumar Byralingaiah
101282388
Swinburne University of Technology
“Quantitative Analysis Report”
Table of Contents
Problem.......................................................................................................................................................1
Hypothesis...............................................................................................................................................2
Definition of terms..................................................................................................................................2
Assumptions............................................................................................................................................3
Delimitation and Limitation.....................................................................................................................3
Importance of study................................................................................................................................3
Literature Review........................................................................................................................................3
Introduction.............................................................................................................................................3
General Background................................................................................................................................4
Purpose of study......................................................................................................................................4
Guiding Questions...................................................................................................................................4
Data collection & treatment........................................................................................................................4
Research Methodology............................................................................................................................4
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................5
References...................................................................................................................................................5
Problem:
Additive manufacturing plays an important role in the field of manufacturing process. Customers
are in the search of low price product with the good quality and the competition among the
market runs with the product that have short delivery period, customization involvement,
intricate products, and possessing a shorter life cycle. Moreover, the products that are currently
developed seemed to be very difficult to design as well as it involves many labors to work. The
manufacturing process involves a strong progress towards their implementation, design and
development part. Moreover the design using Additive or traditional manufacturing process
could be easily implemented by computer-aided design (CAD) or computer-aided manufacturing
(CAM) systems (Gibson, Rosen & Stucker, 2014). But several problems arise during the
manufacturing period. The following are the five key challenges:

a) Limitation in size: AM could be insufficient in the case of manufacturing larger aircraft
components. In this case, traditional manufacturing process could be used that performs
better. The problem also occurs in the fast repair and service maintenance that could
increase the cost.
b) Consistency in quality: While developing the fully denser metallic parts, certain
challenges could be faced by AM process. The issues are dealt; as a result it was due to
the non-uniform layer of the plane surface. The AM currently working system's
repeatability has been raised as a concern by the Aviation industries.
c) Limitations in scalability: Certain companies, which use traditional manufacturing as
their source method, are facing high risk with their inventors where they deal with certain
unpredictable event that tends to use lots of capital. Similarly, the high increase in the
demand could not be captured by the latest AM systems (Gao et al, 2015).
d) Material Cost: Usually, the aircraft parts could be produced by manufacturing
technologies with the help of metal powder and polymers. But these materials are much
costlier when compared to the traditional manufacturing materials. This causes the
systems of AM to have a decrease in their incentives (Manogharan, Wysk, & Harrysson,
2016).
e) Multi-material capabilities limitation: Only a few systems of AM could print multiple
materials concurrently and thereby adapting mass adoption. This could lead in increasing
the flexibility that allows the designer to use various materials with their flexible
property.
Hypothesis:
Additive Manufacturing is said to be known as a "wonder technology" in the recent years, since
it had bought a third revolution that eliminates the need for the design for manufacture. While
this particular statement could be released as pure sensationalism, they get hit to an appealing
hypothesis: additive manufacturing uncouples the artifact (‘what we want to achieve’) from its
production (‘how we want to achieve it’) (Gebler, Schoot Uiterkamp, & Visser, 2014). This
technology could be represented in the view of Suh’s complexity theory and Axiomatic Design
Theory regarding the ideal manufacturing process, if these particular statements are true.
Definition of terms:
a) Additive Manufacturing: The process of adding layer by layer of material to form a
desired shape using the Computer aided design technique is known as the Additive
Manufacturing (AM) process. Rapid prototyping was the initially created methodology
that uses the concept of 3D printing, which is referred as AM.
b) Traditional Manufacturing: Traditional Manufacturing process works on the principle
in producing certain number of products by holding the reserve in case of unexpected
damage or shortages at certain set of periods. Moreover, Conventional manufacturing
process deals by removing the metal pieces from the work piece so that the desired shape
could be obtained.
Assumptions:

Certain assumptions are made in carrying out the process. This could involve in bringing a work
piece and tools together and the tools should be positioned with respective to the surface that is
to be machined. Then the tool is place in contact with the work piece at a high speed. While
looking at the AM technology, the assumptions should be made based on the technology used.
Suppose if we take the Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), a nozzle is placed at a position
thereby bonding new extruded material with the existing bulk (Frazier, 2014). Shear forces are
applied in order to separate the newly deposited material from the nozzle thereby moving the
nozzle far from the print location.
Delimitation and Limitation:
Both the AM and the traditional manufacturing process involves the same coupling procedure of
voxel-by-voxel basis. But, the coupling nature is different for these systems. The moments
generated by the tools contact and forces makes the machining process to be coupled at a high
rate. In AM process, there will be no contact with the work piece (in case of SLS, 3D printing,
Stereolithography etc) or said to have a less contact forces (FDM). This could result in the
decoupling during the system positioning. This explains the reason behind the cost effectiveness
in building, optimizing and controlling the AM process.
On the other hand, same mechanism is used in AM for joining individual voxels, controlling two
different function with the single mechanism is not possible. This is the reason behind the parts
that arises as "near net shape" by AM resulting in the less control of the voxel's geometry.
Importance of study:
The components fabricated by the AM technologies are with the help of the Standard
Tessellation Language (STL) files or 3D computer data that contains all the geometrical
information regarding the object (Cozmei, & Caloian, 2012). It is necessary to know the
importance of AM since it could be used to deal with the complex design, frequently changing
shapes and low volume production. The design constrains of the traditional manufacturing
process could be sorted out with the AM technologies. If certain limitation of AM technologies is
sorted out, then the accuracy could be increased. Moreover, this could be possible by
implementing the sufficient part orientation. Optimizing the part orientation could lead to the
enhancement in the accuracy and thereby reducing the building time with the volume support.
This could also lead to the reduction in the cost.
Literature Review:
Introduction:
The advantage of AM is that it provides cost effective technique for generating group of parts.
The need for safe inventory plays an important role in manufacturing industry which is provides
AM deals with a set of production techniques as well as description of these techniques for
producing components layer-by-layer employing raw materials as well as digital data as its
inputs.
General Background:
The AM has rapidly gained its importance in the field of manufacturing in the year of 1980s.
Since then, AM industry touched $3.1 billion worldwide in the year 2016 and it is predicted that

AM industry will reach $5.2 billion within the year 2020 (Bogers, Hadar, & Bilberg, 2016). By
integrating AM technology with AM industry leads to effective production of parts employing
different materials which offers several advantages. In-order to produce long-lead metallic parts
employed for aircraft manufacturing, the use of AM technology drastically lessens the high cost
tailored during the manufacturing of these components.
Purpose of study:
The AM technology is already modifying the conventional supply chain configuration in several
manufacturing industries (Achillas, Aidonis, Iakovou, Thymianidis, & Tzetzis, 2015). The AM
and its deployment is not difficult as it seems since it does not depend on traditional
methodologies instead it garners the benefits in latest methodologies and constituent components
of the supply chain (Mellor, Hao, & Zhang, 2014).
Guiding Questions:
In order to lessen the set-up as well as items available in the assemblies and its changeover time,
which occurs during the manufacturing of complex components? Generally, AM needs raw
material as well as 3D data to process and manufacture complex parts used in high technology
parts industry such as aircraft manufacturing industry which is proven by many esteemed
researchers by examining the role of AM in the supply chain of aircraft spare components (Lynn-
Charney, & Rosen, 2010).
Data collection & treatment:
The data is collected digitally with the require shape and appearance with the help of the digital
camera or 3D scanners (Merkt, Hinke, Schleifenbaum, & Voswinckel, 2012). The collection of
data for the AM should have the following characteristics:
 It should be able to gather and store the previous data
 The qualitative data (calibration, identification, material pedigree etc) and the quantitative
data should be cataloged
 Segregation and filtration of data
 Data should be stored by linking up with each other
 Sufficient tools are required for displaying and analyzing the data
 Expert the data to other program platform that includes SPSS, MATLAB etc
 Receive inputs from various sources
 Accessible widely (robust) with the sufficient sensitivity
 Monitoring the status in real-time
The errors could be highly reduced when CAD software is used so that it could be corrected
before printing. The data or the information is stored in the STL (Standard Tessellation
Language) file. The 3-dimensional structure of the surface geometry will be present in the file
without the texture, color and other model attributes. These files are in turn generated by the
CAD software for the 3D modeling process. The file extension is .STL and this belongs to
stereolithography. Certain other traditional data sources and also Metallic Materials Properties
Development and Standardization (MMPDS) helps in the identification of pertinent information
that should be grasped by the database. Multiple data management software platform is available
in various research institutions, government sector.

Research Methodology:
It is important to identify the problem that could cause limitation for the manufacturing process.
a) Problem 1: Cyber attacks are possible due to the digital thread of the Additive
manufacturing. The attack could happen due to the key stages present in the process
chain that contains CAD model, the toolpath file, the STL file and the physical machine.
The attack is highly possible with the STL file. The current ISO/ ASTM standard is
followed in the AMF file (Additive Manufacturing file format). Both the AMF and STL
are vulnerable to the cyber attacks. A toolpath attack could be possible by eliminating the
material to the wrong place or damaging the machine part or by triggering the placement
of layers in the wrong path.
b) Problem 2: At certain cases errors could be produced in the STL file. Hence it is
necessary to examine the error before printing it in the 3D model. The errors are in the
form of holes, self intersection, noise shells etc.
One of the steps in the STL generation is called "repair" that will fix the problems to the normal
mode.
Conclusion:
The enhanced and the multiple facilities available within AM make the technology to bloom in
the field of manufacturing process. It is necessary to give a test and trial after the end product
had been created since they are highly complex to create. It is not recommended for all products
to use the AM technologies due to the certain restrictions that have been mentioned in the paper.
The main factor that concerns the AM is said to be sustainability. Moreover, energy efficiency
and environment factors also have an impact with the AM technology.
References:
Achillas, C., Aidonis, D., Iakovou, E., Thymianidis, M., & Tzetzis, D. (2015). A methodological
framework for the inclusion of modern additive manufacturing into the production portfolio of a
focused factory. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, 37, 328–339
Bogers, M., Hadar, R., & Bilberg, A. (2016). Additive manufacturing for consumer-centric
business models: Implications for supply chains in consumer goods manufacturing.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 102, 225–239
Cozmei, C., & Caloian, F. (2012). Additive manufacturing flickering at the beginning of
existence. Procedia Economics and Finance, 3, 457–462
Frazier, W. E. (2014). Metal additive manufacturing: A review. Journal of Materials
Engineering and Performance, 23, 1917–1928.
Gao, W., Zhang, Y., Ramanujan, D., Ramani, K., Chen, Y., Williams, C. B., … Zavattieri, P. D.
(2015). The status, challenges, and future of additive manufacturing in engineering. Computer-
Aided Design, 69, 65–89
Gebler, M., Schoot Uiterkamp, A. J., & Visser, C. (2014). A global sustainability perspective on
3D printing technologies. Energy Policy, 74, 158–167.
Gibson, I., Rosen, D., & Stucker, B. (2014). Additive manufacturing technologies: 3D printing,
rapid prototyping, and direct digital manufacturing. New York, NY: Springer.

Lynn-Charney, C., & Rosen, D. W. (2010). Usage of accuracy models in stereolithography
process planning. Rapid Prototyping Journal, 6, 77–86
Manogharan, G., Wysk, R. A., & Harrysson, O. L. (2016). Additive manufacturing–integrated
hybrid manufacturing and subtractive processes: Economic model and analysis. International
Journal of Computer Integrated Manufacturing, 29, 473–488.
Mellor, S., Hao, L., & Zhang, D. (2014). Additive manufacturing: A framework for
implementation. International Journal of Production Economics, 149, 194–201
Merkt, S., Hinke, C., Schleifenbaum, H., & Voswinckel, H. (2012). Geometric complexity
analysis in an integrative technology evaluation model (ITEM) for selective laser melting
(SLM). South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 23, 97–105.