Title: Mass production strategy for additive manufacturing by stacking the product at design phase

Authors: Arivazhagan Pugalendhi; Rajesh Ranganathan; M.P. Sreekanth

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Civil Aerodrome Post, Coimbatore, TN, 641014, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Civil Aerodrome Post, Coimbatore, TN, 641014, India ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Civil Aerodrome Post, Coimbatore, TN, 641014, India

Abstract: Mass production is usually aimed to reduce the costs involved in product development by increasing the number of units without compromising the quality. Additive manufacturing (AM) technology can reduce the manufacturing lead time; however, it is widely seen as a non-mass production system due to its build volume restrictions and many other factors. In this paper, a strategy named as stacking of parts during modelling/design phase is suggested to overcome the above-mentioned limitation. For this strategy, a square component and a washer were printed in Objet260 Connex machine which yielded a good amount of material (model and support) saving. Further, the numbers of parts which can be built with stacking in the design phase have increased drastically compared with the case of the array made using Objet Studio. Thus, the study recommends adopting the mass production approach in AM. Finally, mechanical properties were also analysed for parts quality.

Keywords: mass production; additive manufacturing; PolyJet; stacking; build volume; material consumption; clearance; mechanical properties.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAPIDM.2020.107730

International Journal of Rapid Manufacturing, 2020 Vol.9 No.2/3, pp.106 - 122

Received: 28 Jul 2018
Accepted: 28 Oct 2018
Published online: 11 Jun 2020 *

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