Towards a complex geometry manufacturing : A case study on metal 3D printing of topology optimised bicycle parts with lattices

Abstract

Manufacturing metal parts with complex geometries using conventional methods has proven to be almost impossible due to tooling constraints. Additive Manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing has proven to be a solution for manufacturing such parts since the constraints imposed by traditional manufacturing are not applicable to AM. The research objective is to demonstrate the workflow from design to manufacturing complex geometry parts specifically for AM Selective Laser Melting (SLM) process, it also has its own constraints that are different than traditional manufacturing. AM provides a solution to manufacturing topology optimised complex geometries that cannot be manufactured using conventional methods. In order to demonstrate the possibilities and challenges of producing complex geometries with additive manufacturing, a case study of manufacturing topology optimised bicycle parts has been conducted at the University of Vaasa, Finland using SLM technology, based on the Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) process. The results of this research show that metal 3D printing is an enabler for manufacturing topology optimised complex geometries with challenges such as the need to edit and optimise the automatically-generated supports, and thermal solid support design for anchoring large flat surfaces, and possible boundary shells issues and post-processing planning.