Research Projects

OScaR

Optical SCAn-and-Repair solution for machine tools

Sector

Manufacturing

Product/Objective

The final goal of the project is to define a technology solution to repair metal components. End users require an automated or semi-automated solution for mounting a part of partially unknown shape into a machine, measuring the relevant part of its surface in 3D and automatically generating a repair program to restore it to the desired shape. The resulting piece also needs to be analyzed automatically for inline quality control. Moreover, since the repair process does not allow for error, a simulation tool for pre-assessing the achievable results is mandatory, especially for additive manufacturing processes for repairs.

Project Summary

In many modern manufacturing applications, in-situ reconstruction of part geometry is a relevant aspect of the production pipeline. For example, damaged parts can often be repaired/re-manufactured to extend their lifecycle, but repairing a damaged part means that the chosen manufacturing technology must be applied to a surface of unknown shape. This is also relevant for parts that must be manufactured by moving through multiple machines, especially when pre-manufactured externally. End users in many fields would benefit from the ability to easily modify multi-process parts and to repair customers’ damaged parts, but lack a consolidated technology with which to easily (1) work on existing parts with far-from-nominal geometry, and (2) generate an AM-DED repair tool path for a damaged segment. Additionally, quality control of the new part must be completed outside the machine, requiring supplementary production time.

Overall impact for the manufacture and repair industries is to enable:

  • environmentally sustainable production (repair of numerous large parts instead of substitution, as is current common practice)
  • decreased energy consumption
  • reduced raw material consumption
  • decreased engineering times due to automation
  • inline quality control of processed parts

Innovation

OScaR enables repair of complex metal parts for high quality applications by integrating an AM-DED (Directed Energy Deposition) machine, in-situ 3D scanning, DED simulation and toolpath generation to achieve the next level of flexible manufacturing.

ES Role

EnginSoft’s role is to set up a suitable model, based on Ansys, to simulate the repair process , to virtually replicate the repair operations performed by Directed Energy Deposition, and to display the repair process on the reference part. The Ansys DED simulation module imports a scanned baseline geometry and an externally generated G-Code. The main materials and process configurations relevant to the use cases are the inputs for the simulation parameters. The final simulation of the deposition process and of thermo-mechanical deformation was developed and tested on the two main use cases which included the validation of the results compared to real measurements.

Partners

PRIMA ADDITIVE SRL | SUPSI - Scuola Universitaria Professionale della Svizzera Italiana | INSPIRE AG | AIDIMME | POZZO SPA | ENGINSOFT SPA

Funding Scheme

EIT Manufacturing Call for Proposals 2022 “Flexible production systems for competitive manufacturing “

OScaR

Project web site

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Duration

12 months

Period

January 2022 – December 2022

Coordinator

PRIMA ADDITIVE

Reference in EnginSoft

Daniele Calsolaro

Partners Number

6

Project insight

Simulation and integration of a DED repair pipeline into the machine tool control environment

by Daniele Calsolaro, Livio Airaudi | EnginSoft

Futurities - Autumn 2023

OSCAR was a collaborative undertaking to define a technological solution for repairing metal components using Directed Energy Deposition (DED) Additive Manufacturing (AM).

The successful implementation of this method has been tested with two case studies, on laboratory and industrial applications.

Read the article
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