Large-scale identification of parts suitable for additive manufacturing: An industry perspective

Additive manufacturing (AM) has many potential benefits to the aerospace industry, especially when low production quantities are required. These benefits range from lightweight and complex geometries to reduced setup costs and lead time. One of the largest challenges to introducing AM into an existing aerospace vehicle is identifying which parts are candidates to be printed. This paper identifies a number of criteria that can be used to quickly filter parts into three categories: Printable As-Is, Easily Redesigned for Printing, and Not Printable Parts. The criteria are also broken into three tiers based on their level of impact on eliminating parts from the selection process. As a demonstration of these criteria, a case study is performed on a suborbital rocket, consisting of over a thousand unique parts. A flow chart is provided to guide the implementation of the filtering criteria, as well as methods to adapt the criteria to different industries.