Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings

Lightening the Load

By Emily Durham | March 28, 2019

Share

The heavier an aircraft is, the more fuel it needs to stay in flight. Every single part adds to the total weight of the aircraft, from the wings to the engines to the bolts that hold everything together. The many parts that make up a vehicle are traditionally made using various machining processes in which raw materials are cut into their desired final shapes. However, traditional machining processes like milling or grinding are limited when it comes to optimizing shapes for the lowest weight. These traditional machining methods have led to manufacturers creating many separate parts that fit together—but this doesn’t have to be the case.

Kate Whitefoot, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and engineering & public policy, and Levent Burak Kara, a professor of mechanical engineering, are developing methods allowing manufacturers to consolidate discrete parts, by taking multiple different sized parts and redesigning them into a single part. This continuous part could then be 3D printed in metal.

Additive manufacturing, also known as 3D printing, allows for the production of new shapes that could not formerly be produced. As members of Carnegie Mellon’s NextManufacturing Center, Whitefoot and Kara are using additive manufacturing to reimagine what’s possible when creating component parts.

“What parts consolidation allows us to do is monolithically make components that would normally have to be assembled together,” says Whitefoot. “This can substantially reduce the costs associated with making those parts, and also potentially allow us significant weight savings. So this is something that manufacturers are really interested in, particularly in industries like aerospace and automotive.”

By consolidating multiple different sized parts into one part, Whitefoot can decrease the number of fasteners, remove mating surfaces associated with the parts, and monolithically print these parts. Under certain conditions, this can make them stronger than multiple parts that were, for example, welded together.

By redesigning the geometry of the parts to further reduce weight, Whitefoot’s research could revolutionize many industrial sectors—particularly aerospace and automotive. When part consolidation is leveraged to bring down the production costs associated with the process, additive manufacturing becomes more cost competitive with more traditional manufacturing methods. By consolidating parts, Whitefoot and Kara are not only reducing production cost and weight savings, but also significantly decreasing the time spent printing the build.

One reason why this is so attractive in the aerospace sector is because pounds directly translate into fuel use throughout aircrafts’ lifetimes. Every ounce saved by optimizing a part’s size and weight can help offset that fuel use, thereby reducing costs and environmental impacts.

“If we can use these methods to significantly reduce production costs, then many more industries would be able to adopt additive and then take advantage of the performance benefits that it can bring,” says Whitefoot, “which includes opening up the design space and potentially causing significant weight savings, having huge cost and environmental benefits when it comes to applications where we translate into fuel use.”

Being able to merge parts and produce them as one single monolithic part is a giant leap for parts manufacturing, but the researchers want to take it a step further—towards automatic redesign. Whitefoot is working with Kara to automate the optimization of metal part shapes created through additive manufacturing—minimizing the weight of these parts, as well as the cost of production.

“With the advance of additive manufacturing, now we can manufacture more complex geometries,” says Kara. “One thing that makes additive topology optimization attractive is that we can now manufacture parts that were only theoretically possible before. Within the parts, complex internal geometries can be produced to minimize the overall mass of the part, while making sure that the structure can withstand all the external forces applied to it as well as a traditionally machined part could.”

Whitefoot and Kara are developing methods that allow for the automatic optimization of parts. With this research, a manufacturer could upload a CAD file of a set of parts, and these methods would automatically gauge the optimal way this set of parts should be consolidated.

“Taking several parts and automatically being able to synthesize them into one uniquely geometric part may not have been feasible before,” Kara adds, “but with additive manufacturing, we can now not only optimize for the best combination of these parts, we can actually create the parts that were impossible to create with traditional machining methods.”

Whitefoot and Kara are currently undergoing an initial one-year project with Boeing to demonstrate the feasibility of the methods they’ve developed. On the commercial market, it takes time to move from having a workable method in the research stage to actual commercial life ability—but the researchers forecast that this technology could be available commercially within a five-year time horizon.

“We’re doing this to help additive manufacturing engineers and designers streamline the process of creating more automated tools,” says Whitefoot, “so additive design can really move from an art to a science.”


Filed Under: Product design

 

Related Articles Read More >

Read COMSOL News 2021
PCB mills
Basics of printed circuit board milling machines
scilab
The top ten free engineering math software packages
hardcore programming for mechanical engineers
Book Review: Hardcore Programming for Mechanical Engineers, By Angel Sola Orbaiceta

DESIGN GUIDE LIBRARY

“motion

Enews Sign Up

Motion Control Classroom

Design World Digital Edition

cover

Browse the most current issue of Design World and back issues in an easy to use high quality format. Clip, share and download with the leading design engineering magazine today.

EDABoard the Forum for Electronics

Top global problem solving EE forum covering Microcontrollers, DSP, Networking, Analog and Digital Design, RF, Power Electronics, PCB Routing and much more

EDABoard: Forum for electronics

Sponsored Content

  • Global supply needs drive increased manufacturing footprint development
  • How to Increase Rotational Capacity for a Retaining Ring
  • Cordis high resolution electronic proportional pressure controls
  • WAGO’s custom designed interface wiring system making industrial applications easier
  • 10 Reasons to Specify Valve Manifolds
  • Case study: How a 3D-printed tool saved thousands of hours and dollars

Design World Podcasts

May 17, 2022
Another view on additive and the aerospace industry
See More >
Engineering Exchange

The Engineering Exchange is a global educational networking community for engineers.

Connect, share, and learn today »

Design World
  • Advertising
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Manage your Design World Subscription
  • Subscribe
  • Design World Digital Network
  • Engineering White Papers
  • LEAP AWARDS

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media
Privacy Policy | Advertising | About Us

Search Design World

  • Home
  • Technologies
    • 3D CAD
    • Electronics • electrical
    • Fastening & Joining
    • Factory automation
    • Linear Motion
    • Motion Control
    • Test & Measurement
    • Sensors
    • Fluid power
  • Learn
    • Ebooks / Tech Tips
    • Engineering Week
    • Future of Design Engineering
    • MC² Motion Control Classrooms
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
    • Webinars
  • LEAP AWARDS
  • Leadership
    • 2022 Voting
    • 2021 Winners
  • Design Guide Library
  • Resources
    • 3D Cad Models
      • PARTsolutions
      • TraceParts
    • Digital Issues
      • Design World
      • EE World
    • Women in Engineering
  • Supplier Listings