Concurrent Shape Optimization of the Part and Scanning Path for Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

This paper investigates the concurrent path planning optimization and the built part structural optimization for powder bed fusion additive manufacturing processes. The state of the art studies rely on existing patterns for trajectories for a fixed built shape. The shape is often optimized for its mechanical performance but rarely in a combined way with its path planning building process. In this work, a two dimensional model (in the layer plane) of the process is proposed under a steady state assumption. Then a systematic path optimization approach, free from a priori restrictions and previously developed in [1], is coupled to a structural optimization tool, both of them based on shape optimization theory. This multiphysics optimization leads to innovative and promising results. First, they confirm that it is essential to take into account the part shape in the scanning path optimization. Second, they also give hints to some design recipes: the material and the source parameters must be related to the thickness of the bars that compose the structure. Indeed, the thickness of a bar is a key ingredient which determines the type of path pattern to scan it: straight line, Omega-pattern and Wave-pattern.