Hybrid additive manufacturing technologies - An analysis regarding potentials and applications

Imposing the trend of mass customization of lightweight construction in industry, conventional manufacturing processes like forming technology and chipping production are pushed to their limits for economical manufacturing. More flexible processes are needed which were developed by the additive manufacturing technology. This toolless production principle offers a high geometrical freedom and an optimized utilization of the used material. Thus load adjusted lightweight components can be produced in small lot sizes in an economical way. To compensate disadvantages like inadequate accuracy and surface roughness hybrid machines combining additive and subtractive manufacturing are developed. Within this paper the principles of mainly used additive manufacturing processes of metals and their possibility to be integrated into a hybrid production machine are summarized. It is pointed out that in particular the integration of deposition processes into a CNC milling center supposes high potential for manufacturing larger parts with high accuracy. Furthermore the combination of additive and subtractive manufacturing allows the production of ready to use products within one single machine. Additionally actual research for the integration of additive manufacturing processes into the production chain will be analyzed. For the long manufacturing time of additive production processes the combination with conventional manufacturing processes like sheet or bulk metal forming seems an effective solution. Especially large volumes can be produced by conventional processes. In an additional production step active elements can be applied by additive manufacturing. This principle is also investigated for tool production to reduce chipping of the high strength material used for forming tools. The aim is the addition of active elements onto a geometrical simple basis by using Laser Metal Deposition. That process allows the utilization of several powder materials during one process what enables the tailoring of the tools materials mechanical properties. Another aspect is the possibility of Laser Alloying of the tools surface to reduce abrasive and adhesive wear. This technique is especially interesting for tools used in hot stamping production. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.