Colloquia

Summary

This thesis investigates what is needed to industrialise the Direct Energy Deposition Additive Manufacturing process for Royal Kaak and how to integrate this into their current engineering process. Royal Kaak already has a fully functional Laser Powder Bed Fusion printer but struggles to have this technology embraced by its engineering department. Royal Kaak recently acquired a new Direct Energy Deposition printer, allowing for printing on a much larger scale. Design rules and guidelines have internally been developed, but there has never been an attempt to create a complete workflow for an engineer. Royal Kaak’s case is not very common. They do not want to use additive manufacturing to add value to high-tech components but use it to reduce carbon emissions and necessary welding hours for relatively low-tech products. Because of this, additional engineering costs cannot be justified, and the workflow has to be very user-friendly for their current personnel without strong background knowledge in the field.

The products of Royal Kaak have been analysed, divided into four categories and additive manufacturing opportunities have been identified. Three design optimisation techniques have been explored accordingly: Topological Optimisation, Generative Design and Layout & Cross-section Optimisation. Due to its complexity, Topological Optimisation is outside the scope of this thesis and was left out of further research. For Generative Design and Layout & Cross-section Optimisation, workflows were developed. In Fusion360, a Generative Design workflow was developed. The outcomes proved that it is not possible to utilise this technique due to the limited control over the generation of the geometries. For Layout Optimisation, a Grasshopper script in Rhino was developed. Due to software limitations, this resulted in three script versions (A, B and C) with different functions and functionality. The Rhino workflow was validated by redesigning a part using Script B. The validation was completed successfully, and the connection nodes were printed. Rhino script B has the most potential for implementation. Using any shape-generating algorithm requires a very detailed setup of the design study. At Royal Kaak, designs are often created based on experienced engineers. It is very complex to transfer all the knowledge regarding unknown loads and accessibility to an algorithm. An engineer excels in understanding the entire functional environment. Therefore, an engineer should create a wire-frame design, and the individual elements are then optimised by Rhino’s script B.