Degree Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

2018

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

Major

Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering

First Advisor

Matthew C. Frank

Second Advisor

Richard T. Stone

Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the challenges of design and additive manufacturing (AM). It considers the challenges that such a freeform manufacturing process can have on design freedom. Much of the current literature is focused on this design freedom only as a positive, and work to improve design-for-AM, and how to better exploit the technology. On the contrary, this work looks at how that design freedom can be a challenge if and when a move from AM to a more conventional process is needed. The work is broken into three studies related to the implication of rapid technologies on the design process. Firstly, a user study to examine the effect of AM on design fixation was implemented using two groups, a Design for Conventional Manufacturing (DFCM) group and a Design for Additive Manufacturing group (DFAM). It was found that designers who trained on AM knowledge (DFAM group) experienced a design fixation on non-producible features and produced harder to conventionally manufacture designs, even when asked to modify designs for conventional manufacturing. This brings to light the negative effect of AM knowledge on designers and necessitates treatment methods. Therefore, the second part of this work focused on treating the negative effects of AM knowledge on designer skills. Mainly, a user study investigated the use of Design for Manufacturing (DFM)-based software in mitigating design fixation on non-producible features. The 3D feedback of the DFM software helped to reduce design fixation on non-producible features and improved the machinability of modified designs. The DFM feedback helped designers by highlighting areas in the design that could have machinability problems, however, it did not provide designers with a suggestion on how to modify and migrate their designs from AM to Conventional processes. Thus, the third part of this dissertation proposed a method that can provide a designer with suggestions to modify a design and allow its migration from AM to conventional processes. The method determines best cut lines for dissecting a design into pieces such that the surfaces of problematic features become more machinable. The method was tested, and results showed that the method can dissect a design into components that have better machinability on average than the original design. Overall, this work suggests the use DFM software and a dissection method for treating the design fixation related to AM and for facilitating the migration of designs from additive to conventional manufacturing. This work could be applied to manufacturing industries, particularly for AM parts that are slated for mass production which will require migration to conventional methods.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31274/etd-180810-5898

Copyright Owner

Esra'a Abdel-All

Language

en

File Format

application/pdf

File Size

109 pages

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