Assembly Based Methods to Support Product Innovation in Design for Additive Manufacturing: An Exploratory Case Study

Abstract

is an open access repository that collects the work of Arts et Métiers ParisTech researchers and makes it freely available over the web where possible. Additive manufacturing (AM) is emerging as an important manufacturing process and a key technology for enabling innovative product development. Design for additive manu-facturing (DFAM) is nowadays a major challenge to exploit properly the potential of AM in product innovation and product manufacturing. However, in recent years, several DFAM methods have been developed with various design purposes. In this paper, we first present a state-of-the-art overview of the existing DFAM methods, then we introduce a classification of DFAM methods based on intermediate representations (IRs) and prod-uct's systemic level, and we make a comparison focused on the prospects for product innovation. Furthermore, we present an assembly based DFAM method using AM knowl-edge during the idea generation process in order to develop innovative architectures. A case study demonstrates the relevance of such approach. The main contribution of this paper is an early DFAM method consisting of four stages as follows: choice and develop-ment of (1) concepts, (2) working principles, (3) working structures, and (4) synthesis and conversion of the data in design features. This method will help designers to improve their design features, by taking into account the constraints of AM in the early stages.

Investigation of design for additive manufacturing in professional design practice

“…Many papers report on technological advances in additive manufacturing on and reflect on the potential of these developments for designers (Hague, Campbell, and Dickens 2003). Some studies present specific design guidelines , and others focus on the unique AM capabilities (Gibson, Rosen, and Stucker 2010), AM design potentials (Kumke, Watschke, and Vietor 2016) and 'opportunistic DfAM' (Laverne et al 2015). Studies describing the capabilities of AM are seeking to raise awareness and encourage designers to design in a different way.…”

“…Notably, almost all studies distinguish between two different types of design guidance: (Gibson, Rosen, and Stucker 2010;Hague, Campbell, and Dickens 2003;Kumke, Watschke, and Vietor 2016;Laverne et al 2015;.…”

“…These rules focus on component features to ensure manufacturability by communicating the limits and constraints of AM. Different authors use a range of terminology, including: design rules , AM design rules (Kumke, Watschke, and Vietor 2016), 'restrictive DfAM' (Laverne et al 2015) and design constraints (Hague, Campbell, and Dickens 2003). These rules tend to apply at the detail design stage, to refine or optimise individual geometric features and their dimensions according to the capability of the specific AM process to be used.…”

Design for Additive Manufacturing: Supporting Intrinsic-Motivated Creativity

“…They guide designers to progress from an ideal IR to realistic ones by embodying variations due to the manufacturing constraints. The 3 rd category Dual DFAM groups methods combining the two previous approaches [11]. Dual DFAM is more suitable for product innovation since it guides designers to exploit AM potential in a realistic way.…”

Design for Wire + Arc Additive Manufacture: design rules and build orientation selection

“…To date DfAM has mainly been focussed in two main areas -firstly, defining the design freedoms and customisation capabilities of AM (Gibson, Rosen, and Stucker 2010;Hague, Mansour, and Saleh 2004;Rosen 2014), and secondly investigating the optimal manufacturing strategy for additive manufactured parts (Adam and Zimmer 2014;Kerbrat, Mognol, and Hascoët 2011;Ponche et al 2014). Laverne et al (2015) classify these two DFAM research areas as 'design making' and 'design assessment', and further subdivide design making approaches into opportunistic DFAM methods which help designers explore creative shape complexity offered by AM, restrictive DFAM methods that take into account the limitations of AM and dual DFAM methods which combine the other two approaches. Their proposed early A-DFAM approach is mostly focused on the early design stages.…”