Enhanced performance of magnetic floating devices enabled through metal additive manufacturing
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Publicerad
2020
Författare
Mehta, Bharat
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
This master’s thesis work is focused on establishing the functionalities that can be
achieved by utilising additive manufacturing in products currently manufactured
using traditional techniques. Additive manufacturing is seen to be a game changer
in the current manufacturing scenario. With the fact that complex parts can be
made easily and higher design freedom is available, it is possible to push design and
material limits further by employing concepts such as lattice structures and topology
optimised structures in order to obtain higher strength to weight ratios. Hence,
a primary study into the designability of a magnetic floating device was done. It
was followed by a secondary study into the mass-manufacturability aspect which is
mostly affected by printing parameters.
For this master’s thesis work, a family of products which work as floating devices,
currently being manufactured at ABB, have been selected to investigate and develop
a mass-manufacturable design which can provide much higher specific buckling
strength than the current manufacturing methods. It was critical to keep the
products similar or better in all performance characteristics (such as corrosion resistance,
temperature performance, surface roughness, etc.). The investigation was
not limited to using additive manufacturing but rather to suggest optimised techniques
to design and manufacture the product family. The material used to study in
this thesis was 316L stainless steel, since ABB typically uses the same material for
manufacturing the product and it was readily available for additive manufacturing.
As a result, several stiffened structures were shown for this product, which were
simulated to show significant improvement in performance and manufacturability,
improving the specific buckling strength by about three times the current part. From
the experiments conducted, a relation between the failure mode of thin shell under
uniaxial compression was developed and tailored properties of lattice structures were
also studied. Furthermore, an extended study into the effect of laser power, layer
thickness, laser speed and scan strategy was also conducted to understand the mass
manufacturability of thin cylindrical shells.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Additive manufacturing , Laser powder bed fusion , thin wall shells , lattice structures , LPBF process parameters , 3D printing , 316L stainless steel