Additive Manufacturing and Metal Replacement in the Automotive field: the case study of a headlight protection grid

Over the past years, the more and more stringent regulations on environmental impact of automotive industry have pushed manufacturers to strive for new solutions in terms of weight reduction. This phenomenon is translated in the well-known procedure of metal replacement, which has been present in the automotive world for a few decades but is lately gaining traction; this is thanks to the rising of a new series of polymer which can compete with the main metals used in the automotive world (steel and aluminium). To this day, metal replacement is adopted principally through the substitution of metal parts with plastic ones, in the majority of case injection moulded, while Additive Manufacturing, another process which is constantly spreading in the industry, is rarely taken into consideration. The aim of this work is, after a brief excursus on both Metal Replacement and Additive Manufacturing and their use in the Automotive industry, to individuate an appropriate case study where these two approaches can be combined, selecting a component which is actually made of metal and could result equally or more competitive if produced in polymeric material through Additive Manufacturing. After the selection of the component, the study continues with the analysis of its current manufacturing method, followed by the selection of the suitable Additive Manufacturing technique and corresponding material. The next step is the evaluation of the current design and consequent redesign of the selected component, with the individuation of the variables that can be modified with respect to the original design and the objective of optimize it exploiting as much as possible the potentialities of Additive Manufacturing, taking into account also the mechanical requirements through the performing of Finite Element Model analyses. Finally, once one or more alternative designs have been individuated and developed, it will be possible to perform a comparison between the original component and the alternative one under different points of view and aspects.