scholarly journals Additive Manufacturing in Off-Site Construction: Review and Future Directions

Buildings ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 53
Author(s):  
Jubert Pasco ◽  
Zhen Lei ◽  
Clodualdo Aranas

Additive manufacturing (AM) is one of the pillars of Industry 4.0 to attain a circular economy. The process involves a layer-by-layer deposition of material from a computer-aided-design (CAD) model to form complex shapes. Fast prototyping and waste minimization are the main benefits of employing such a technique. AM technology is presently revolutionizing various industries such as electronics, biomedical, defense, and aerospace. Such technology can be complemented with standardized frameworks to attract industrial acceptance, such as in the construction industry. Off-site construction has the potential to improve construction efficiency by adopting AM. In this paper, the types of additive manufacturing processes were reviewed, with emphasis on applications in off-site construction. This information was complemented with a discussion on the types and mechanical properties of materials that can be produced using AM techniques, particularly metallic components. Strategies to assess cost and material considerations such as Production line Breakdown Structure (PBS) and Value Stream Mapping are highlighted. In addition, a comprehensive approach that evaluates the entire life cycle of the component was suggested when comparing AM techniques and conventional manufacturing options.

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-86
Author(s):  
Dipesh Dhital ◽  
Yvonne Ziegler

Additive Manufacturing also known as 3D Printing is a process whereby a real object of virtually any shape can be created layer by layer from a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model. As opposed to the conventional Subtractive Manufacturing that uses cutting, drilling, milling, welding etc., 3D printing is a free-form fabrication process and does not require any of these processes. The 3D printed parts are lighter, require short lead times, less material and reduce environmental footprint of the manufacturing process; and is thus beneficial to the aerospace industry that pursues improvement in aircraft efficiency, fuel saving and reduction in air pollution. Additionally, 3D printing technology allows for creating geometries that would be impossible to make using moulds and the Subtractive Manufacturing of drilling/milling. 3D printing technology also has the potential to re-localize manufacturing as it allows for the production of products at the particular location, as and when required; and eliminates the need for shipping and warehousing of final products.


Author(s):  
Neeraj Panhalkar ◽  
Ratnadeep Paul ◽  
Sam Anand

Additive manufacturing (AM) is widely used in aerospace, automobile, and medical industries for building highly accurate parts using a layer by layer approach. The stereolithography (STL) file is the standard file format used in AM machines and approximates the three-dimensional (3D) model of parts using planar triangles. However, as the STL file is an approximation of the actual computer aided design (CAD) surface, the geometric errors in the final manufactured parts are pronounced, particularly in those parts with highly curved surfaces. If the part is built with the minimum uniform layer thickness allowed by the AM machine, the manufactured part will typically have the best quality, but this will also result in a considerable increase in build time. Therefore, as a compromise, the part can be built with variable layer thicknesses, i.e., using an adaptive layering technique, which will reduce the part build time while still reducing the part errors and satisfying the geometric tolerance callouts on the part. This paper describes a new approach of determining the variable slices using a 3D k-d tree method. The paper validates the proposed k-d tree based adaptive layering approach for three test parts and documents the results by comparing the volumetric, cylindricity, sphericity, and profile errors obtained from this approach with those obtained using a uniform slicing method. Since current AM machines are incapable of handling adaptive slicing approach directly, a “pseudo” grouped adaptive layering approach is also proposed here. This “clustered slicing” technique will enable the fabrication of a part in bands of varying slice thicknesses with each band having clusters of uniform slice thicknesses. The proposed k-d tree based adaptive slicing approach along with clustered slicing has been validated with simulations of the test parts of different shapes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1201 (1) ◽  
pp. 012037
Author(s):  
F Bjørheim ◽  
I M La Torraca Lopez

Abstract In contrast to the traditional ways of subtractive manufacturing, additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, adapts computer-aided design to iteratively build the component or part layer by layer. The technology has recently gained a high momentum, both within academia, but also within the industrial sector. However, it is common that parts produced by AM will have more defects than parts produced by traditional methods. The objective of this paper is to investigate a new method of additive manufacturing, namely the bound metal deposition method (BMD). This method seemed promising from the perspective that the metal is not iteratively being melted, similar to such as welding. In fact, the part is first printed, then washed, for then to be sintered. Consequently, avoiding the complex thermal histories/cycles. It was found that the material will exhibit anisotropic behaviour, and have a mesh of crack like defects, related to the printing orientation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-3
Author(s):  
Abhishek Bansal ◽  
Navneet kukreja ◽  
Shivangi Trivedi ◽  
Jayant Verma ◽  
Jyoti Bansal ◽  
...  

Abstract: The process of 3 Dimensional (3D) printing is used to create a 3D object with the help of a computer aided design (CAD) model, by successive addition of material layer by layer thus it is also known as additive manufacturing. During 1990’s, the technique of 3D printing was only applied for the manufacture of aesthetic or functional prototypes and was suitably named as rapid prototyping. The following descriptive review presents with an overview about contemporary 3D printing technologies and their use in various specialties of dentistry and largely focusing on the applications of this technology in the endodontics.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 5786
Author(s):  
Hwa-Jung Lee ◽  
Jeongho Jeon ◽  
Hong Seok Moon ◽  
Kyung Chul Oh

This technical procedure demonstrates a 4-step completely digital workflow for the fabrication of complete dentures in edentulous patients. The digital scan data of the edentulous arches were obtained using an intraoral scanner, followed by the fabrication of modeless trial denture bases using additive manufacturing. Using the trial denture base and a wax rim assembly, the interarch relationship was recorded. This record was digitized using an intraoral scanner and reversed for each maxillary and mandibular section individually. The digital scan data directly obtained using the intraoral scanner were superimposed over the reversed data, establishing a proper interarch relationship. The artificial teeth were arranged virtually and try-in dentures were additively manufactured. Subsequently, the gingival and tooth sections were additively manufactured individually and characterized. Thus, fabrication of digital complete dentures can be accomplished using digital data characteristics. The workflow includes data acquisition using an intraoral scanner, data processing using reverse engineering and computer-aided design software programs, and additive manufacturing.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Norberto Pires ◽  
Amin S. Azar ◽  
Filipe Nogueira ◽  
Carlos Ye Zhu ◽  
Ricardo Branco ◽  
...  

Purpose Additive manufacturing (AM) is a rapidly evolving manufacturing process, which refers to a set of technologies that add materials layer-by-layer to create functional components. AM technologies have received an enormous attention from both academia and industry, and they are being successfully used in various applications, such as rapid prototyping, tooling, direct manufacturing and repair, among others. AM does not necessarily imply building parts, as it also refers to innovation in materials, system and part designs, novel combination of properties and interplay between systems and materials. The most exciting features of AM are related to the development of radically new systems and materials that can be used in advanced products with the aim of reducing costs, manufacturing difficulties, weight, waste and energy consumption. It is essential to develop an advanced production system that assists the user through the process, from the computer-aided design model to functional components. The challenges faced in the research and development and operational phase of producing those parts include requiring the capacity to simulate and observe the building process and, more importantly, being able to introduce the production changes in a real-time fashion. This paper aims to review the role of robotics in various AM technologies to underline its importance, followed by an introduction of a novel and intelligent system for directed energy deposition (DED) technology. Design/methodology/approach AM presents intrinsic advantages when compared to the conventional processes. Nevertheless, its industrial integration remains as a challenge due to equipment and process complexities. DED technologies are among the most sophisticated concepts that have the potential of transforming the current material processing practices. Findings The objective of this paper is identifying the fundamental features of an intelligent DED platform, capable of handling the science and operational aspects of the advanced AM applications. Consequently, we introduce and discuss a novel robotic AM system, designed for processing metals and alloys such as aluminium alloys, high-strength steels, stainless steels, titanium alloys, magnesium alloys, nickel-based superalloys and other metallic alloys for various applications. A few demonstrators are presented and briefly discussed, to present the usefulness of the introduced system and underlying concept. The main design objective of the presented intelligent robotic AM system is to implement a design-and-produce strategy. This means that the system should allow the user to focus on the knowledge-based tasks, e.g. the tasks of designing the part, material selection, simulating the deposition process and anticipating the metallurgical properties of the final part, as the rest would be handled automatically. Research limitations/implications This paper reviews a few AM technologies, where robotics is a central part of the process, such as vat photopolymerization, material jetting, binder jetting, material extrusion, powder bed fusion, DED and sheet lamination. This paper aims to influence the development of robot-based AM systems for industrial applications such as part production, automotive, medical, aerospace and defence sectors. Originality/value The presented intelligent system is an original development that is designed and built by the co-authors J. Norberto Pires, Amin S. Azar and Trayana Tankova.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Wiktoria Maria Wojnarowska ◽  
Jakub Najowicz ◽  
Tomasz Piecuch ◽  
Michał Sochacki ◽  
Dawid Pijanka ◽  
...  

Purpose Chicken orthoses that cover the ankle joint area are not commercially available. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to fabricate a customised temporary Ankle–Foot Orthosis (AFO) for a chicken with a twisted ankle using computer-aided design (CAD) and three-dimensional (3D) printing. The secondary objective of the paper is to present the specific application of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in veterinary medicine. Design/methodology/approach The design process was based on multiple sketches, photos and measurements that were provided by the owner of the animal. The 3D model of the orthosis was made with Autodesk Fusion 360, while the prototype was fabricated using fused deposition modelling (FDM). Evaluation of the AFO was performed using the finite element method. Findings The work resulted in a functional 3D printed AFO for chicken. It was found that the orthosis made with AM provides satisfactory stiffen and a good fit. It was concluded that AM is suitable for custom bird AFO fabrication and, in some respects, is superior to traditional manufacturing methods. It was also concluded that the presented procedure can be applied in other veterinary cases and to other animal species and other parts of their body. AM provides veterinary with a powerful tool for the production of well-fitted and durable orthoses for animals. Research limitations/implications The study does not include the chicken's opinion on the comfort or fit of the manufactured AFO due to communication issues. Evaluation of the final prototype was done by the researchers and the animal owner. Originality/value No evidence was found in the literature on the use of AM for chicken orthosis, so this study is the first to describe such an application of AM. In addition, the study demonstrates the value of AM in veterinary medicine, especially in the production of devices such as orthoses.


Author(s):  
Haichao Wang ◽  
Jie Zhang ◽  
Xiaolong Zhang ◽  
Changwei Ren ◽  
Xiaoxi Wang ◽  
...  

Feature recognition is an important technology of computer-aided design/computer-aided engineering/computer-aided process planning/computer-aided manufacturing integration in cast-then-machined part manufacturing. Graph-based approach is one of the most popular feature recognition methods; however, it cannot still solve concave-convex mixed interacting feature recognition problem, which is a common problem in feature recognition of cast-then-machined parts. In this study, an oriented feature extraction and recognition approach is proposed for concave-convex mixed interacting features. The method first extracts predefined features directionally according to the rules generated from attributed adjacency graphs–based feature library and peels off them from part model layer by layer. Sub-features in an interacting feature are associated via hints and organized as a feature tree. The time cost is reduced to less than [Formula: see text] by eliminating subgraph isomorphism and matching operations. Oriented feature extraction and recognition approach recognizes non-freeform-surface features directionally regardless of the part structure. Hence, its application scope can be extended to multiple kinds of non-freeform-surface parts by customizing. Based on our findings, implementations on prismatic, plate, fork, axlebox, linkage, and cast-then-machined parts prove that the proposed approach is applicable on non-freeform-surface parts and effectively recognize concave-convex mixed interacting feature in various mechanical parts.


Materials ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 2304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janusz Kluczyński ◽  
Lucjan Śnieżek ◽  
Krzysztof Grzelak ◽  
Janusz Mierzyński

Selective laser melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing technique. It allows elements with very complex geometry to be produced using metallic powders. A geometry of manufacturing elements is based only on 3D computer-aided design (CAD) data. The metal powder is melted selectively layer by layer using an ytterbium laser. This paper contains the results of porosity and microhardness analysis made on specimens manufactured during a specially prepared process. Final analysis helped to discover connections between changing hatching distance, exposure speed and porosity. There were no significant differences in microhardness and porosity measurement results in the planes perpendicular and parallel to the machine building platform surface.


Author(s):  
Meng Zhang ◽  
Xiaoxu Song ◽  
Weston Grove ◽  
Emmett Hull ◽  
Z. J. Pei ◽  
...  

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a class of manufacturing processes where material is deposited in a layer-by-layer fashion to fabricate a three-dimensional part directly from a computer-aided design model. With a current market share of 44%, thermoplastic-based additive manufacturing such as fused deposition modeling (FDM) is a prevailing technology. A key challenge for AM parts (especially for parts made by FDM) in engineering applications is the weak inter-layer adhesion. The lack of bonding between filaments usually results in delamination and mechanical failure. To address this challenge, this study embedded carbon nanotubes into acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) thermoplastics via a filament extrusion process. The vigorous response of carbon nanotubes to microwave irradiation, leading to the release of a large amount of heat, is used to melt the ABS thermoplastic matrix adjacent to carbon nanotubes within a very short time period. This treatment is found to enhance the inter-layer adhesion without bulk heating to deform the 3D printed parts. Tensile and flexural tests were performed to evaluation the effects of microwave irradiation on mechanical properties of the specimens made by FDM. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images were taken to characterize the fracture surfaces of tensile test specimens. The actual carbon nanotube contents in the filaments were measured by conducting thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The effects of microwave irradiation on the electrical resistivity of the filament were also reported.


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