Ansätze zur Verbesserung von Qualität und Wirtschaftlichkeit bei generativen Verfahren durch Optimierung des Pre-Processes

Abstract

Abbreviation of development periods and production time of patterns, products and tools come together with today’s state-of-the-art layered manufacturing technology. Beside this gain of time another advantage is the possibility of manufacturing com-plex geometry that cannot be processed with conventional manufacturing technolo-gies when cost-effective production is in the users focus. Nevertheless, efficient lay-ered manufacturing can only be done when the pre-process steps are aligned with the part geometry, the selected layered manufacturing technology and the appropri-ate material. Thus the pre-process steps part orientation, part placement and nesting, support generation and slicing are the major fields of activity. Insufficient documenta-tion of the importance of this steps respective quality and efficiency and the concern-ing contents are the reason for production failures, when inexperienced users start using this technology. Regarding common examples, possibilities for the optimization of the selected pre-process tasks will be presented. Results obtained in current re-search at the University of Duisburg-Essen (Institute for Product Engineering - Com-puter Aided Design) regarding part orientation, adaptive slicing and part nesting are introduced as well.