Integration of topology optimization in a design process for parts made by FDM plastic additive manufacturing

Supervisor(s):: Henri PARIS / Philippe Marin
Doctoral School :: IMEP2
Start Date :(desired) : Septembre 2015:
Financing - Context - Partnerships :

Description :

For a few years, more and more companies try to integrate in their product design plastic parts made by additive manufacturing technologies. These technologies are more and more mature, the panel of available materials increases every month, and the properties of parts that are made become better and better. Every industrial application sector is concerned, including sport, automotive industry, healthcare products or aeronautics. And additive manufacturing is no more restricted to prototypes manufacturing: according to [1] more than 28% of parts made by additive technologies are dedicated to direct use in products.
Additive machines manufacturers, as well as service companies, materials providers and final users try to get technical skills, but also the understanding of what can be done or not with additive technologies, and their impact on product development processes: the introduction of topology optimization, numerical simulation, design rules, specific features related on the building process or post treatment, particular knowledge that should be integrated in this process, etc. Research activities performed in Laboratory G-SCOP already address several aspects among these, especially around metal additive manufacturing (EBM), including design rules and topology optimization integration.
This PhD is set up in a research context aiming at the development of design methodology for plastic parts dedicated to additive manufacturing. It will be built around FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) technology that is widely developed in manufacturing companies. The main target questions of this research deal with the design process, design rules, process parameters, expected performances, technology limits and potential industrial applications. It appears that still few research have been conducted on this technology and they mainly focus on either extrusion process or building strategies, but seldom on part design phase. Among these questions, this PhD will focus on the integration in the design process of topological optimization techniques that are nowadays developed and used mainly for metal additive manufacturing parts. Some FDM features prove its ability to make geometries obtained from topology optimization, but some difficulties arise like anisotropy of built material related to filament deposition and layers orientation, and also some limits in possible shapes. We thus want to define the possibilities and limits of topology optimization in case of design of parts that will be made by FDM technology.
The PhD student will base on deep bibliography analysis about FDM and topology optimization. A series of case studies will then be performed analyzing design, manufacturing and behavior of the parts, in order to set up hypotheses, design rules, and best practices for topology optimization of FDM parts. Finally a synthesis should lead to a proposal of a structured design approach for the integration of topology optimization in the design of FDM plastic parts. This design methodology will be the final deliverable of the PhD project.