Analysis of the evolution of costs and production quality by additive manufacturing and comparison with production by conventional methods

• Grant number: 13/01898-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2013
• End date: April 30, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Production Engineering - Product Engineering
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo de Senzi Zancul
• Grantee: Caio Mezzeti Giordano
• Host Institution: Escola Politécnica (EP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Additive manufacturing has been identified as a technology that can revolutionize production processes and change production strategies currently employed. However, today additive manufacturing is still primarily used in the production of prototypes, which requires high flexibility and low-cost specific tooling. The trend is that additive manufacturing will become gradually more used as part of production processes of final products as they reach better levels of quality (such as dimensional accuracy, finish, tolerances, among others) and lower production costs, moving closer to costs of high-volume production. In this scenario, this research aims to analyze and compare quality characteristics and production costs for a standard piece produced by additive manufacturing and by conventional production methods, analyzing the feasibility of implementing the technology as an essential part of production processes. The research also provides the establishment of a standard - standard part, their design features, and typical volumes of production - from which the research group in which this work is placed may make periodic (twice a year) analysis, primarily for evaluation of cost reduction and quality improvement that should occur in coming years with the increasing scale and learning in additive manufacturing production equipment. (AU)