TB2 - 3D PRINTING

Additive manufacturing processes have now reached a sufficient degree of technological maturity to be implemented in an industrial environment, especially for rapid prototyping in design office, for small production volume, or even for the repair and coating of parts. The engineer working on the products design or on the manufacturing processes must understand and master the potential, but also the constraints and the limits of additive manufacturing for the different materials, in order to select the correct additive process if relevant.

This toolbox addresses the application of different additive manufacturing processes for the main classes of polymer, ceramic and metallic materials. The goal is to get theoretical and practical skills on the use of these processes, starting from the slicing of 3D parts until the practical implementation, while adjusting the parameters of these processes and taking into consideration the limitations of each technique.

An introduction session will present the different categories of additive manufacturing, the pre-processing steps (i.e., computer aided design and slicing of a 3D object) through a practical example.

Then, the student will be able to apply two different additive processes adapted to ceramic and polymer materials during 3 practical work sessions. The various scientific locks as well as the physical concepts to control the manufacturing defects will be presented, and the methods for optimizing each additive manufacturing technique for the main classes of materials will be explained.

Then, the different notions will be deepened thanks to conferences and courses/tutorials.

Technical conferences will allow to analyse technical issues, and will provide user feedback on the most popular technologies from experts in the field.

Three sessions of courses/tutorials will be offered to present specific additive processes for each class of materials (polymers, metals, ceramics). The objective will be to highlight the advantages and drawbacks of the processes and to link them with the materials’ properties. The students will be encouraged to have a critical look on additive manufacturing and to avoid a too simplified approach.

Finally, the Toolbox will be concluded with a last session when the students will present the work performed during the challenge. A test will also evaluate the knowledges gained during the courses and tutorials.

Link with Sustainable Development Goals: 

This GP is divided into 2 complementary units.
The UP1 is dedicated to practical works to discover 3 3D printing processes with practical work sessions. A first introduction session will be focused on Computer assisted design and 3D slicing.
The UP2 is divided in 3 course sequences related to the processes applied to the different types of materials (polymers, ceramics and metals). It will be completed by 2 conferences with feedbacks from users of certain processes.

The knowledge gained during this GP can be considered as a complement to the major "Materials" and can be completed by knowledge in design with the toolbox "Design/Virtualization/Materialization".