A COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO MULTI-MATERIAL SOLID FREEFORM FABRICATION USING SIMULATED ANNEALING
Goal
Reduce build time and cost of manufacturing by using prefabricated inserts with solid freedom fabrication techniques.
Abstract
Solid Freeform Fabrication (SFF) techniques in recent years have shown tremendous promise in reducing the design time of products. Although SFF has gained popularity, the manufacturing time and cost have limited its use to small and medium sized parts. In this work, we have proposed a novel concept for rapidly building SFF parts by inserting prefabricated inserts into the fabricated part. A computational algorithm was developed for determining an ideal placement of inserts/cores in the CAD model of the part being prototyped using a heuristic optimization technique called Simulated Annealing.This approach will also allow the designers to build multi-material prototypes using the Rapid Prototyping (RP) technique. By using cheaper pre-fabricates instead of costly photopolymers, the production cost of the SFFs can be reduced. Additionally it will also reduce build time, resulting in efficient machine utilization.
People
Dr. T. Kesavadas (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering)
Deepesh Khandelwal (Dept. of Mechanical Engineering)
Publications
[1] Khandelwal, D., and Kesavadas, T., Computational Approach To Multi-Material Solid Freeform Fabrication Using Simulated Annealing, Journal of Materials Processing & Manufacturing Science. v 7 n 4 1999. pp 405-415.
[2] Khandelwal, D. and Kesavadas, T., A Computational Approach to Multi-material Solid Free Form Fabrication Using Simulated Annealing, Presented at the ASME DETC Conference, Baltimore, MD, September 2000. CD-Rom Proceedings.
