Advanced design rules for optimMAl Dynamic properties of Additive Manufacturing products

Project Information

A_MADAM

Grant agreement ID: 734455

DOI

10.3030/734455

Project closed

EC signature date 23 November 2016

Start date 1 January 2017

End date 31 December 2021

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 468 000,00

EU contribution

€ 468 000,00

Coordinated by

FAKULTET ZA MASINSTVO I GRADJEVINARSTVO U KRALJEVO UNIVERZITETA U KRAGUJEVCU
Serbia

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - A_MADAM (Advanced design rules for optimMAl Dynamic properties of Additive Manufacturing products)

Reporting period: 2019-01-01 to 2021-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The A_MADAM project has the mission to enhance application of an exciting new technology, the additive manufacturing (AM), in mechanical engineering. Our objective is to discover proper way to design mechanical components and structures to be able to withstand dynamic loads that arise in exploitation.

Additive manufacturing (AM) belongs to key enabling technologies where Europe has the leading research role. The AM technologies put considerably fewer limits on shape of the manufactured objects than the conventional technologies, and offer unparalleled freedom of design to industrial and mechanical designers. Since the AM technologies are insensitive to production scale, they put in focus knowledge and creativity of designers instead of low prices of mass production, paving the way to development of new business models. The AM technologies, therefore, represent a technology platform that may best serve Europe in its intent to develop knowledge-based economy, driven by innovation.

However, the industrial deployment of AM technologies is hindered by a gap that exists between the excellent research and its exploitation in industry.
The research knowledge about the AM technologies is published in scientific journals and in conference proceedings, in a form suitable for researchers. On the other hand, industrial and mechanical designers in their work use sets of design rules, which represent condensed and comprehensive form of the research findings that are easy to follow. The lack of sets of design rules for AM technologies is one of important reasons why engineers often prefer conventional technologies to AM.

The A_MADAM project intends to use the research capacities and partnerships developed in previous EU funded projects to carry out systematic studies of dynamic mechanical properties (fatigue, fracture mechanics and impact resistance) of products manufactured by AM with the goal to establish a proper rule set for design of products of AM technologies. Since the aim of the project is to “translate” the research findings into engineering rules, the consortium consists of two universities and three SMEs that use AM technologies for rapid prototyping, rapid manufacturing and rapid tooling applications.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The objective of the WP1-DEFINE was to define and update the research program of the project.
The objective of the WP2-PRODUCE was actual production of the 882 samples defined by the research program devised within the WP1-DEFINE. The sample production was made by University of Kragujevac and Studio Pedrini, and post-processed by "Plamingo"
Characterization of samples, performing of initial series of tests and performing of additional series of tests were gathered in the work package WP3-TEST. The experiments are performed at University of Bologna and in “Topomatika”.
Analysis of results of initial tests and additional tests, was made within the work package WP4 ANALYZE.
The objectives of the workpackage WP5-DISSEMINATE was to present the project results to target groups of the project. Researchers and experts in the field are addressed by publication of 12 papers in peer-reviewed journals and 18 articles presented in scientific conferences, all available at the public digital repository of the project. Industrial engineers and students of mechanical engineering, who are trained to use design rules, are addressed through the workshops and the A_MADAM public digital repository available at www.mfkv.kg.ac.rs/d4am.
The objective of the workpackage WP6-COMMUNICATION was to inform the widest audience about the goals and results of the A_MADAM project, MSCA and H2020 program, and it was achieved through development of project website, social network accounts, organization of 14 info days and media conferences, 10 press releases, 19 popular science publications and participation in 8 events organized by other projects.
WP7-MANAGEMENT provided accomplishment of the project objectives within the specified timelines and available resources. All the milestones were cleared according to project plane, and all the deliverables were submitted as planned.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

Each of the three research directions of the project defined by the research program developed within the WP1-DEFINE brought a progress beyond the state-of-the-art:
---Influence of the material properties to fatigue behaviour of AM products
The study is performed on two materials, maraging and stainless steel, using two opposite principles for manufacturing of the samples:
o manufacturing of the samples using only the AM technologies, when the samples are manufactured by DMLS technology with the final dimensions („as-built“ samples);
o manufacturing of the samples using a combination of the additive and subtractive technologies, when the samples are manufactured by DMLS technology with increased dimensions (“allowance”), and the manufacturing to the final dimensions is performed by machining (“machined samples”);
The following conclusions may be derived from the present studies that included both machined and as-built maraging steel samples, as well as machined stainless steel samples:
1. The optimal properties of maraging steel AM products are achieved by the sequence of the heat treatment followed by shot-peening on “as-built” samples; a fatigue limit in the range 25-30% of the ultimate tensile strength of the material may be expected (Figure 1);
2. The optimal properties of stainless steel AM products are achieved by the sequence of the heat treatment followed by shot-peening on “hybrid” samples, where the allowance increases the fatigue resistance up to the thicknesses around 3 mm; due to the combination of two factors, a fatigue limit in the range 35-40% of the ultimate tensile strength of the material may be expected for crack propagation in the building direction and in the directions of layers, while the fatigue limit may increase up to 50% of the ultimate tensile strength of the material for crack propagation in the directions of 45 degrees with respect to the building direction (Figure 2);
--- Influence of advanced shapes to fatigue behaviour of AM products
The initial results arise from an extensive numerical test campaign that was performed on different samples with innovative design based on the AM capabilities show that it is theoretically possible to design structures with an extrinsic toughening mechanism against crack propagation using a relatively simple geometrical shape that may be manufactured using the AM technologies (Figure 3). The experimental test campaign should give the final word on the interesting idea.
--- Fracture mechanics AM products
The initial results of a test campaign aimed to find the fracture mechanics properties of polyamide PA2200 samples manufactured by SLS. The results show that the linear elastic fracture mechanics concepts can be used only as a very rough approximation (Figure 4), so the research direction, as far as plastics samples are concerned, will be the computation of the J-integrals. The difference between KIC of the samples with manually created cracks and samples with cracks built by SLS is around 10%.

Comparison of theoretical (blue) and experimental (red) values of stress factors

Fatigue limit of stainless steel samples (D,a) denotes the orientation and allowance (mm)

Fatigue limit of maraging steel samples (D,a) denotes the orientation and allowance (mm)

Stress intensity factor as a function of the crack size for the different specimen types