(IME 2022/2023 - 2ª fase)
NAS QUESTÕES DE 33 A 39, RESPONDA DE ACORDO COM O TEXTO 2.
Text 2
Overview of current additive manufacturing technologies and selected applications
Horn, T..J. e Harrysson, O.L
1 | Three-dimensional printing or rapid prototyping are processes by which components are fabricated directly |
from computer models by selectively curing, depositing or consolidating materials in successive layers. These | |
technologies have traditionally been limited to the fabrication of models suitable for product visualization but, over | |
the past decade, have quickly developed into a new paradigm called additive manufacturing. | |
5 | It remains to be seen what the long term implications of additive manufacturing will be. In many regards, it is |
a technology that is still in its infancy and it represents a very small segment of manufacturing overall. That small | |
segment is growing quickly but the future is by no means certain. Scarcely a quarter century has passed since | |
the first stereolithography systems for rapid prototyping appeared on the market. | |
In that short time, additive manufacturing has not only become relatively common place in science, academia, | |
10 | and industry, but it has also evolved from a method to quickly produce visual models into a new manufacturing |
paradigm. In the past two decades, revenues associated with products and services show that additive manufac- | |
turing has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry | |
Additive manufacturing has the potential to radically change the way in which many products are made and | |
distributed. Throughout history, key innovations in manufacturing technology have had a profound impact on our | |
15 | society and our culture. An examination of the applications and technologies suggest that additive manufacturing |
may become a truly disruptive technology. | |
Prior to the industrial revolution goods were typically produced by skilled artisans and were often tailored | |
to satisfy a specific, individual demand. While this approach may have had many inherent advantages to the | |
consumer (i.e. high quality, custom parts on demand) it is doubtful that system could have persisted under the | |
20 | growing demands of society. |
The invention of the first machine tools (that is tools capable of precisely controlling the relative motion | |
between a tool and a work piece) along with advances in fixturing and metrology facilitated the manufacture | |
of interchangeable parts which, in turn, supported the development of the mass production system. The model of | |
mass production also has many clear advantages to both the producers and the consumers of products, including; | |
25 | high throughput, high quality and product consistency at a low unit cost. This, of course, comes at the cost of |
reduced product diversity. | |
In the last century, the means by which many goods are manufactured has been radically enhanced by | |
computer controlled machinery and automation. However, in general, the basic methods and materials are quite | |
similar to those used at the turn of the 19th century. Bulk materials must still be either cut, formed, or molded in | |
30 | order to fabricate value-added products. In fact, a large portion of the products that we consume or use at the |
present time are manufactured using processes like forming, injection molding, casting, extrusion, stamping, and | |
machining. Each one of these processes requires some form of tooling (mold, die, flask, stamp, fixture, etc.). | |
For instance, if we consider casting an exhaust manifold in steel we must first design and fabricate a sand or | |
investment mold with the negative shape of the final part. A metal stamped part, as simple as a washer, requires | |
35 | a die and a large stamping press in order to be produced. A simple plastic cover for a smart phone requires an |
injection mold that may cost thousands of dollars and an injection molding machine that may costs hundreds of | |
thousands to millions of dollars. The cost and time dedicated to the design and fabrication of tooling that supports | |
mass production represents a significant percentage of the total cost of a product. | |
The natural result of high tooling costs is that within a given mass production system there is an inverse | |
40 | relationship between the quantity of a product that is produced and the variety of product designs available. |
It is necessary that we recognize that production tooling is not only expensive, but it also constrains the | |
design of products based on innate limitations imposed by the various mass production processes. This is a | |
widely studied area of manufacturing known as design for manufacture (DFM). | |
As a brief example, consider a plastic injection molded part. One of the key limitations is that the mold must | |
45 | provide for the easy removal of the part. This means that the part must have slightly outward sloping surfaces |
(called positive draft), as inward sloping surfaces would essentially lock the part to the mold like a dovetail making | |
it impossible to remove. Further, the injection mold itself must be precisely machined, ground, and polished from | |
a block of metal, and the processes that are used to do that, like milling with a cutting tool, also have similar | |
limitations (i.e. the cutting tool must be able to access the feature that will be cut). | |
50 | Increasing the complexity of the part to better serve a given function can drive up the cost of the tooling |
required for producing it and, in many cases, the optimal design for a given purpose is impossible to produce | |
using traditional mass production methods | |
Additive manufacturing represents a fundamentally new method of part fabrication. It is the process of | |
fabricating components directly from 3D computer models by selectively depositing, curing, or consolidating | |
55 | materials one layer upon the next. Each layer represents the cross-sectional geometry of the part at a given |
height. This is a stark contrast to traditional manufacturing processes like forming, casting, and machining | |
because tooling is not required to produce a part. The freeform nature of additive manufacturing is therefore | |
changing the way we look at traditional DFM constraints. In many cases the traditional constraints no longer | |
apply. | |
60 | By building parts additively, in layers, components can be manufactured with extremely complex geometries, |
such as internal channels, undercut features, or engineered lattice structures with controlled and/or variable | |
porosity. These are features that are extremely difficult or impossible to produce with traditional methods. | |
The implication of this is quite simple to recognize but at the same time has a profound result. Removing the | |
need for tooling facilitates the economical production of small lot sizes of parts (as low as one) without sacrificing | |
65 | interchangeability, thereby reducing the lead time for production (because the tools do not need to be produced), |
allowing flexibility in the supply chain and the production location (parts can be made where and when they | |
are demanded), and raising the possibility of transitioning from a system of mass production to one off mass | |
customization. It also means that design changes incur much less cost in production so products can potentially | |
be customized to conform to the needs of the individual consumer. In many ways this concept goes far beyond | |
70 | the definition of most existing mass customization models in which mass produced components are fabricated |
and then assembled on demand to specific customer orders. |
Adapted from: Sage Journals. Available at: <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3184/003685012X134209844630>[Accessed on 10th March 2022].
Choose the option that does not refer to the rapid prototyping process:
directly manufactured components;
components made from computer models;
injection molding;
manufacturing by layering;
consolidation manufacturing of layered materials.