Design against distortion for aerospace-grade additively manufactured parts - PADICTON

Abstract

Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a computer-controlled 3D printing process with increasing demand in the aerospace sector. This manufacturing process offers the production of lighter components, design flexibility, reduced labour effort and material cost, as well as decreased waste generation compared with subtractive manufacturing. Additionally, AM can provide parts availability at the point of use, significantly improving the supply chain. However, producing advanced high-temperature AM thermoplastic components remains a challenging task as these require a high-temperature build chamber environment that is prone to producing parts with thermal stresses and warpage. PADICTON project aims to develop a tool capable of accurately and rapidly predicting and correcting such distortions, offering improved quality of the produced parts and minimising rejection rates. Creating this tool requires conducting a comprehensive mechanical and thermal characterisation campaign to optimise the print parameters and part geometry. In this study, the concept of the project and the findings of the initial mechanical and optical characterisation tests for two AM processes, namely fused deposition modelling and selective laser sintering, are presented and discussed.