Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2023
27th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Development of a Robotic Additive Manufacturing Cell Based on Laser Metal Deposition Process at the University of Coimbra and University of Brasilia
Submission Author:
Alberto Alvares , DF
Co-Authors:
Alberto Alvares, Carlos Zhu, Luis Simoes da Silva, Trayana Tankova, Igor Lacroix, Brayan Stiven Figueroa Betancourth
Presenter: Brayan Stiven Figueroa Betancourth
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2023.COB2023-0718
Abstract
This work showcases two Robotic Additive Manufacturing (AM) Cells that use Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) through Meltio hardware, one at the University of Coimbra (Portugal) and the other at the University of Brasilia (Brazil). The aim is to reflect on how these systems are developed to make compelling solutions for metal manufacturing. In consideration first are the equipment selected for each cell, both universities use Kuka robots a KR 70 R2100 at the University of Brasilia and a KR 60-3 at the University of Coimbra. Using a multi-laser deposition head with 6 converging lasers (200 watts each) the AM cells are capable of building with several materials, for example, stainless steels, mild steels, carbon steels, titanium, nickel, and copper. The University of Brasilia´s Meltio system was acquired in July 2022, giving an approximate investment for the cell of $180,000. This work focuses on the physical and logical integration/implementation in hardware (robot controllers, deposition heads, safety mechanisms, etc.), and in software (Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Process Planning/Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAD/CAPP/CAM)), elaborating on different material deposition strategies for planar and non-planar path planning (slicing), and multi-axis manufacturing. Next, the development of Digital Twins is presented and analyzed in virtue of the practicality to simulate and test different strategies in a virtual environment. Through this paper, a direct look at two universities´ outlooks on LMD manufacturing is presented, discussing different levels of developing AM cells and contributing to the current state of the art of LMD process and robotic systems.
Keywords
Laser Metal Deposition (LMD), Adiitive Manufacturing, Robotic, Grasshopper, Digital Twin
