Design and development of Additive Manufacturing tools for vacuum fixing

Disruptive changes in manufacturing, brought by developing countries competition and lasting economic crisis, require Europe’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to pursue radical business model change. Innovation, intended as the ability to adapt and change, putting creativity at work to overcome any obstacle, is the only way to be competitive in present economic circumstances. Innovation is a sequence of failures. But what happens when this sequence of failures lasts only a few days, or even few hours? Advanced Manufacturing and networks of intelligent devices, enabling on-demand and on-site production with reduced waste made this possible. This thesis shows how a SME located in Turin, LMA Aerospace, is facing the crucial challenge of innovation. Additive Manufacturing (AM) can innovate company’s processes by creating a new value position to be competitive on the market. This work accounts for the selection of suitable AM technology and relative application on production ground of AM enabled products. Selected production process is vibro-engraving marking of aluminium flight-critical parts. Taking full advantage of AM technology, a new system layout is proposed, tested and validated. A quick mount-and-release system with custom designed jigs is developed, alongside the re-engineering of marking area layout. To reduce the components’ number, built-in vacuum cups are designed into AM jigs to fix the part onto a baseplate, vacuum channels are made inside the jig itself at no extra cost. All the system’s components are designed and produced in-house by 3D printing. Main result of this project was the creation of 3D printed FDM tools able to sustain high percentage of vacuum for a long time without continuous air suction. Integration of vacuum suction cups with FDM printed tools was challenging due to material porosity. Careful design of jigs and appropriate AM machine settings solved the problem, however alternative solutions are discussed. The new system layout reduces marking process time and cost, increase product quality and is energy efficient. Moreover, it reduces the noise of the marking machine so that no special PPE is required. Further projects will be deployed to other areas of the workshop to affect higher value-added processes. Dimensional and Quality Control Departments could benefit with rapid manufacturing of dedicated jigs and tools. Fibre reinforced composite tools could be developed for machining centres. Results of this work could be applied to other manufacturing industries such as sheet metal processing. Processes that could use our integrated system are displacement and fixing for assembly or dimensional control with CMM.