To Örebro University

Förmågan att kommunicera och samarbeta över olika gränser är en nyckelkompetens för blivande ingenjörer, samtidigt som känslan av tillhörighet till det egna utbildningsprogrammet är central för studenternas motivation och engagemang. I denna studie har vi utvecklat och prövat en modell i form av studentledda tillämpningsseminarier, där äldre studenter fungerar som seminarieledare för yngre studenter. Syftet har varit att skapa aktiviteter som både tränar kommunikations- och samarbetsförmåga och stärker programtillhörigheten genom länkning mellan kurser och årskurser. Aktiviteten genomfördes med tredjeårsstudenter som seminarieledare och med förstaårsstudenter som deltagare i en kurs i mekanik. Aktiviteten utvärderades genom intervjuer, enkäter och kursansvarigas observationer. Resultaten visar att seminarieledarna upplevde aktiviteten som meningsfull träning i att anpassa kommunikation till en annan målgrupp och att seminariedeltagarna uppskattade kontakten med mer erfarna studenter, vilket bidrog till inspiration och ökad förståelse för programmet som helhet. Samtidigt framkom utmaningar, bland annat variationer i svårighetsgrad och förberedelser mellan grupperna. Slutsatsen är att modellen är resurseffektiv, uppskattad av både studenter och lärare och kan återanvändas med vissa justeringar. Den erbjuder ett konkret sätt att både främja kommunikativa färdigheter och stärka studenters programtillhörighet. 

Recent process developments in Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), such as the possibilities to use high end polymers (for example PEEK) or to manufacture metal parts and parts reinforced with continuous fibers, have increased industrial interest. Previously, this additive manufacturing (AM) technology was mostly popular among hobbyists thanks to its low investment cost. With the increased industrial interest comes higher demands on product strength and production efficiency.

The FFF process has many parameters that should be optimized to meet these tougher requirements. One of these parameters is the size of the nozzle through which the filament is extruded. Today a fairly wide range of sizes are available on the market, but most standard-sized printers come equipped with a 0.4 mm nozzle.

In this study, a wide range of nozzles of different sizes have been manufactured to investigate how the nozzle size affects both the printing process and the mechanical properties of the printed parts. Tensile bars have been manufactured in polylactic acid (PLA) using 7 different nozzle sizes. The samples were investigatedby means of computer tomography (CT) and optical microscopy and subjected totensile testing.

Wire drawing is a manufacturing process in which metal rods or wires are drawn through a single or a series of dies, reducing the wire cross-section and enhancing the mechanical properties of the wire. The tribological conditions in wire drawing are quite extreme and high friction between the wire and the die results in an increased die temperature. Previous studies have shown that by reducing the die temperature the lifetime of the die increases and thus efficient cooling of the die is of high importance.

Additive manufacturing enables fabrication of tools with advanced conformal cooling channels with high cooling efficiency. This technique may, therefore, be of high importance in the design of the cooling system of drawing dies. In the present study, the effect of conformal cooling design of die holder on the die temperature, and thus die performance, was investigated. A die holder was manufactured by means of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) in an EOS M290 machine using atomized corrosion resistant steel (Corrax). The cooling efficiency of the manufactured tool holder was evaluated in an industrial wire drawing process and further analysed using FEM modelling. This study shows promising results on improved cooling efficiency for die holder designed and manufactured by additive manufacturing.

In this paper, the compressive response for a number of truss- and surface-based networks with equal relative density was compared. The effect of errors in the structures were also investigated. The results show that surface networks are, in general, more efficient structures than truss-lattices in compression. The results also show that surface networks are significantly more resilient to fabrication errors than their truss-lattice counterparts.

3D data exchange between different CAD systems and from design to manufacturing has largely moved to ISO STEP based formats. The Additive Manufacturing (AM) process today requires an approximate, planar triangle tessellated 3D model as an input. Improving accuracy in STL file exports is done differently in different CAD systems. Poor tessellation accuracy results in built parts with poor geometric accuracy because of errors in source data. In this study, results of tessellation from six different CAD systems are compared. Roundness accuracy for the different settings is calculated. Results show that tessellation effects may be visible even when roundness requirements are fulfilled. A method for 3D data exchange for AM using STEP and geometric requirements is proposed until better accuracy AM formats can be used.

Additive Manufacturing (AM) using Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) allows part with abstract shapes, that otherwise would need costly tooling, to be manufactured with short lead time. In this study AM build time simulations are used to predict series part cost for eight parts that are possible to cut from rod blanks using High Speed Machining (HSM). Results indicate that when the part shape can be cut from rod blanks, AM is more expensive than HSM even for series of one. If post processing machining is added to the printed AM blank part, the cost difference increases further. Finally, the model is used to predict part-cost in series production if print speed increases, if machine cost is reduced or if part mass is reduced as a result of redesign for AM.

The complexity of today’s products and materials is ever increasing. There is a demand on the industry to produce lighter, stronger, and more precise products. A common practice to achieve such products is to combine different materials to enhance strengths and reduce weaknesses; multi material products. Fabricating complex parts using multi materials does, however, lead to an increased difficulty in metrological verification and material characterisation. The use of computed tomography is today widespread within the industry, providing new possibilities for internal measurements, but there are still many uncertainties associated with the method. It is well known that large variations in density of multi materials greatly affects the contrast obtained by computed tomography, resulting in difficulties to scan and acquire reliable data from certain material setups.In this work the effects on internal measurements as a consequence of differences in X-ray penetration depth have been studied with regards to multi material setups. The main interest was the ability to acquire measurements from internal features of material compositions that are commonly used in the industry. In the result, difficulties and uncertainties associated with computed tomography of multi materials are highlighted and suggestions on how to reduce problems and obtain a more reliable test method are discussed.

3D-printing has been used to create prototypes during the development phase for more than 20 years. Now, functional parts can be printed directly in specific metal powders using similar layer-by-layer techniques. The additive method is unlike traditional mass production manufacturing methods in many ways, creating new possibilities for designers to realise new and different design ideas previously impossible to manufacture. When products are mass produced, there is a desire to improve manufacturability. This is traditionally done by a designer with knowledge about certain manufacturing methods altering design choices to make it cheaper to manufacture.

This paper shows different design for AM (DfAM) methods where performance and part cost are both of interest. It adds to existing research by classifying design for additive manufacturing in two different classes; process-driven and designer-driven shaping of parts. A cost-prediction model for Selective Laser Melting (SLM) printed parts is suggested as an initial step to choose parts for redesign from an economical perspective. A case study of a missile launcher beam redesigned for additive manufacturing using three different approaches is presented. Differences and similarities in design methods are discussed and the redesigned parts are compared for mass and cost. It is shown that redesigning for AM can reduce mass but depending on part size and print speed, the part can become more expensive than the original design, creating a need to know the customer value of what the redesigned part provides, in this case, the value of reduced mass.

There is a prevailing assumption that the largest inclusions in steel volumes follows mode I of the Generalized Extreme Values (GEV) distribution. In this work, the GEV distributions of non-metallic inclusions in six different high performance steels, of different grades and processing routes, were investigated by means of fractography of inclusions causing failure in ultrasonic fatigue testing to one billion cycles and all three modes of the GEV were found for the different steel grades. Values of the shape parameter ξ of the GEV distribution as high as 0.51 (standard deviation 0.11) were found in one steel grade. Thus, the present results show that the assumption of GEV-I (Gumbel, LEVD) distribution has to be substantiated before being used to estimate the size of the largest inclusions.

The presence of defects, such as oxides and other non-metallic inclusions, is an important factor in determining the properties of steels. Due to improvements in the manufacturing of high-quality steels, the amount of large defects has decreased and therefore it has become increasingly difficult to accurately determine their distribution using conventional methods. Previously, a method for estimating the distribution of large defects using a conversion from the Gumbel distribution has been presented. However, it has been shown that the Gumbel distribution is not always appropriate for modelling the sizes of the largest defects and that the Generalized Extreme Values (GEV) distribution should be used instead. In this work a more general method for the estimation of the total volume distribution of large defects isproposed, showing how the volume distribution may be calculated from the estimated parameters for the GEV distribution. The new method is applied to the results of a series of specimens made from high-quality tool steel tested in ultrasonic resonance fatigue. Possible methods for obtaining the confidence limits of thevolume distribution are also discussed.