Integrating additive manufacturing and repair strategies of aeroengine components in the computational multidisciplinary engineering design process

Paper in proceeding, 2018

This paper presents a methodology for integrating failure and lifecycle analysis related to additive manufacturing in a computational multidisciplinary engineering design framework. The specific goal of this framework is to quantify the impact of component design decisions on system-level performance in order to assess alternative manufacturing, re-manufacturing and repair strategies from both technical and business perspectives. The ultimate objective of this research is to enable such considerations in the early product design phases, where sufficient degree of freedom exists to identify component design solutions that can facilitate and accommodate different manufacturing and repair techniques that impact the entire lifecycle. The developed methodology is demonstrated by means of a jet engine component where repair strategies are included as variables in the computational design process. Numerical results confirm that these strategies can be used to trade among design attributes such as lifecycle cost, weight, and performance.