Part Repair using a Hybrid Manufacturing System

Nowadays, part repair technology is gaining more interest from military and industries due to the benefit of cost reducing as well as time and energy saving. Traditionally, part repair is done in the repair department using welding process. The limitations of the traditional welding process are becoming more and more noticeable when the accuracy and reliability are required. Part repair process has been developed utilizing a hybrid manufacturing system, in which the laser aided deposition and CNC cutting processes are integrated. Part repair software is developed in order to facilitate the users. The system and the software elevate the repair process to the next level, in which the accuracy, reliability, and efficiency can be achieved. The concept of repair process is presented in this paper. Verification and experimental results are also discussed.Mechanical Engineerin

Process planning for multi-axis hybrid manufacturing systems using centroidal axis transform

A Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) System is a multi-axis hybrid layered manufacturing system in which the deposition and machining processes are integrated. Functional parts can be directly produced from the CAD drawings. Near net shapes are built by depositing layers of material on top of each other one by one. The surface is finished by CNC machining after a certain number of layers have been deposited. If the system has the capability of 5-axis movements, then the shapes of the parts are not limited to 2.5-D. Support structures are usually needed in layered manufacturing for building parts with overhang features. However, in the LAMP system, 3-D layer slicing has been implemented to handle complicated parts in order to reduce the support structures. Unlike most of the other deposition processes, instead of STL-format files, boundary-representation (B-Rep) part files are used as the input for the path planning processor. This reduces the errors due to the approximation in the process of converting the CAD part files to STL-format files. The slices generated by 3-D slicing technique are R² surfaces embedded in R³ Space. Deposition offset paths based on Voronoi diagram of the slice geometry are then planned on each slice. Not only can the LAMP system be used to build a functional part directly from a CAD model, but also the system can be used in other applications. Part repair, which is one of the promising applications, using this system is described --Abstract, page iv

Skeleton-based Geometric Reasoning for Adaptive Slicing in a Five-axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process System

Multi-axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) is an additive manufacturing process similar to laser cladding. This process can produce full functional parts [1]. Traditional Layered Manufacturing processes produce parts with limited surface quality; and also the build time is often long due to the deposition of sacrificial support structure. The multiple degrees of freedom endow the LAMP system a capability to build parts without support structure. An algorithm for adaptive slicing based on skeleton is presented in this paper. The skeleton is useful for many applications such as feature recognition, robot path planning, shape analysis, and etc [2]. The near optimal build direction can be generated using information provided by the part skeleton, which is a 2D (or less) “surfaces” embedded 3D space containing the general form of the object.Mechanical Engineerin

Automatic Multi-Axis Slicing based on Centroidal Axis Computation

A multi-axis adaptive slicing algorithm which can generate optimal slices to achieve deposition without support structures for multi-axis layered manufacturing is presented in this paper. Different from current adaptive slicing, this technique varies not only in layer thickness but also in slicing direction. Aware of potential problems of previous research on slicing, the work in this paper studied an innovative geometry reasoning and analysis tool-centroidal axis. Similar to medial axis, it contains geometry and topological information but is much computationally cheaper. Using a centroidal axis as a guide, the multi-axis slicing procedure is able to generate a 3-D layer or change slicing direction as needed automatically to build the part with better surface quality. This paper presents various examples to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of centroidal axis and its usage in the multi-axis slicing proces

Automatic Process Planning and Toolpath Generation of a Multi-Axis Hybrid Manufacturing System

With the integration of multiaxis layered manufacturing and material removal (machining) processes, a hybrid system has more capability and flexibility to build complicated geometry with a single setup. Process planning to integrate the two different processes is a key issue. In this paper, an algorithm of adaptive slicing for a five-axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) is summarized that can generate uniform and non-uniform thickness slices. A method to build a non-uniform (thickness) layer that utilizes two processes is presented, and an overall algorithm for integration is described. The newly developed algorithm implemented in the process planning helps the hybrid system build parts more efficiently

Automatic Process Planning and Toolpath Generation of a Multiaxis Hybrid Manufacturing System

With the integration of multiaxis layered manufacturing and material removal (machining) processes, a hybrid system has more capability and flexibility to build complicated geometry with a single setup. Process planning to integrate the two different processes is a key issue. In this paper, an algorithm of adaptive slicing for a five-axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) is summarized that can generate uniform and non-uniform thickness slices. A method to build a non-uniform (thickness) layer that utilizes two processes is presented, and an overall algorithm for integration is described. The newly developed algorithm implemented in the process planning helps the hybrid system build parts more efficiently

Automatic Process Planning of a Multi-Axis Hybrid Manufacturing System

With the integration of multi-axis layered manufacturing and material removal (machining) processes, a hybrid system has more capability and flexibility to build complicated geometry with a single setup. Process planning to integrate the two different processes is a key issue. In this paper, an algorithm of adaptive slicing for five-axis Laser Aided Manufacturing Process (LAMP) is summarized which can generate uniform- or non-uniform slices. In order to avoid interruption in the deposition process for one slice, a skeleton-based offset deposition tool-path method is used to generate continuous moving paths. A method to build a non uniform (thickness) layer which utilizes two processes is presented and an overall algorithm for integration is described. The newly developed algorithm implemented in the process planning helps the hybrid system build part more efficiently