Multi-objective optimization of product and production design for the additive process chain using the example of Power Bed Fusion with Laser Beam of Metals

• Applicant: Professor Dr.-Ing. Johannes Henrich Schleifenbaum
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development ; Primary Shaping and Reshaping Technology, Additive Manufacturing
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 577244694

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a manufacturing processes that produces components are produced layer by layer based on three-dimensional models. As an innovative technology, it makes a decisive contribution to individualised and, in particular, resource-efficient production. As a digital technology, AM also offers the opportunity to utilise data from various domains of the manufacturing process in product development and to take into account production-related boundary conditions at an early stage in the development process. Nevertheless, the transfer of these possibilities for the use of AM in sustainable and product-centred value chains has only been successful in a few cases to date. However, a closer examination of the digital product design and production of AM reveals that there are silos of isolated optimisation. Consequently, the production-related optimisation potential that is usually exploited in other manufacturing processes and production chains cannot therefore be addressed in AM. These limitations also apply in particular to the industrially relevant AM process of Powder Bed Fusion with Laser Beam of Metals (PBF-LB/M) if, for example, the design guidelines lead to a minimisation of the support structure, as the products are "only" designed individually, but the entire production programme – i.e. the interaction between different products – is relevant in production. This domain-specific "sub-optimisation" represents a major challenge in the (cost-) efficient and resource-saving use of additive manufacturing processes. However, it is a state-of-the-art phenomenon due to the largely unexplored, cross-domain interactions between product design and production. Measures to exploit unused potential by multi-objective optimising product creation for PBF-LB/M can therefore be a key enabler for a cost-effective and resource-saving AM production route. The objective of the ProAM project is therefore to dismantle the barriers between product and product design and integrate them into a unified and optimised design. This reciprocal multi-objective optimisation of product and production design for PBF-LB/M should result in significant improvements in the parameters of time (construction time), costs (cost structure), quality (design rules) and sustainability (life cycle analysis). This necessitates the research and development of a multi-objective model that describes the interdependencies and makes them manageable. Based on the individual steps in the optimisation processes, relevant control parameters between the dependencies of the individual modelling of product development and production are identified and abstracted. Based on this, a systematic analysis is employed to link the various modelling processes and bundle them in a metamodel description for an integrated product design.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants