Robust post-processing of additively manufactured components

Background

Additive Manufacturing (AM) enables the production of components in entirely new ways, offering a higher degree of flexibility than many traditional manufacturing methods. In recent years, we have witnessed astonishing growth in additive manufacturing with metallic materials, especially in the aerospace and energy sectors. However, the industrialization pace of AM is slower than expected, and the manufacturing industry struggles to transition from prototyping to full-scale production.

A recent study has shown that insufficient stability, repeatability, and reproducibility constitute a major barrier to further industrial adoption of additive manufacturing, limiting investments in AM systems by the manufacturing industry.

To democratise additive manufacturing and enhance its accessibility across all industrial sectors, BRAVE aims to establish an international collaboration between Sweden and Germany. This partnership will combine expertise across multidisciplinary areas including in-process monitoring and quality compliance, advanced characterization and modelling, post-processing, and in-situ experimentation.

We believe that the barriers preventing large-scale adoption of AM in industry today can, to a large extent, be overcome by developing reliable simulation-assisted and data-driven roadmaps and guidelines, and integrated open-source digital platforms, contributing to improved predictability, performance, and availability within the entire AM supply chain.

Purpose and goal

BRAVE’s main objective is to promote a competitive Swedish industry, by creating “sustainable business” for the entire manufacturing value-chain.

The existing modelling and simulation tools for DfAM and post-AM processes are fragmented, directly affecting development timelines for manufacturability, and attainable quality. BRAVE employs a holistic strategy, supported by physical tests, in-depth characterization, modelling, and simulation. The goal is to reduce the total production costs, carbon footprint, and lead time for manufacturing AM components, while maintaining the quality requirements.

BRAVE intends to develop and deploy an integrated experimental and simulation-based platform to optimize the value chain for powder bed fusion LB, including HIP/integrated thermal processes, hirtisation, machining, and mass-finishing. The platform aims to facilitate the transition to commercialisation and standardisation of additive manufacturing technologies and post-processing manufacturing routes for high-end products.

BRAVE focuses on industrial implementation and is intended to be a springboard for new commercial relationships to enhance the value of AM in the aerospace and energy sectors. The parties play prominent roles within the supply chains, which will help broaden the dissemination of the project results.

Structure and anticipated outcomes

BRAVE's research and development activities are divided into seven work packages:

• WP1-Requirements & specifications
• WP2-Additive manufacturing
• WP3-Post-processing
• WP4-Functionality and sustainability
• WP5-Integrated digital framework
• WP6-Demonstration & qualification
• WP7-Communication, dissemination, exploitation & project management

Lab-scale and field exposure corrosion tests, as well as tribological and fatigue experiments will be performed to evaluate the credibility of the developed platform.

Reduced energy consumption, reduced environmental impact, and improved quality are among the most important KPIs for the value chain optimisation.