Additive manufacturing in a product design and development process
Tervo, Tuomas (2018)
2018
Konetekniikka
Teknisten tieteiden tiedekunta - Faculty of Engineering Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2018-10-03
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201809172309
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tty-201809172309
Tiivistelmä
This master thesis work started as a case study by Etteplan Design Center. The purpose of the study was to show and prove that additive manufacturing is a rapidly growing area of the future business. The aim was also to show and improve the AM competence of the company. The study explored a way to create a functional motorcycle seat for a paralytic race rider, Ulla Kulju. The seat would be attached to Ulla’s motorcycle to improve driving performance. During the case study Ulla Kulju was part of the evaluation team giving a user perspective to the product. At the same time the other part of this additive manufacturing and optimization team called AMO-team was creating a pair of custom foot pegs for Ulla’s motorcycle.
The design of the seat could only be produced with additive manufacturing. The additive manufacturing techniques used in this case study were Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Multi Jet Fusion (MJF). One of the goals of this thesis was to create a design which could be easily adapted to other motorcycles and other paralytic riders. To demonstrate the advantages of additive manufacturing a digitally modular seat design was created.
The project started by a 3D scanning of Ulla’s motorcycle and by creating the first design concept of the seat. After this the first design was manufactured and tested on the field. As far as the team was aware, anything like this seat hasn’t been created, tested or used before. Because of the absence of reference on the subject, the team didn’t really know how the seat would act in high speed and quick movements. During the test drive it appeared that the seat was performing better than expected.
A second version of the seat was created to improve the design. The second seat’s design, however, was too large to perform well and improvements needed to be made to the next design. The improvements included reducing weight and production cost by reducing material consumption. Also, the seat’s movements were too wide. It was assumed that the movements would take too much time in the racing situation, in which all movements need to be very quick. Thus, the length of movement needed to be reduced. The shape and appearance of the seat also needed to be improved. The shape of the seat didn’t match the shape of the motorcycle and stood out too much. These features were redesigned and the design process led to the third version of the seat.
This study led to patenting the structure of the seat. The case study culminated in International Bridgestone Handy Race in Le Mans, France. The seat was tested in real competition when Ulla rode the race with the final design of the seat and won her own series.
The design of the seat could only be produced with additive manufacturing. The additive manufacturing techniques used in this case study were Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) and Multi Jet Fusion (MJF). One of the goals of this thesis was to create a design which could be easily adapted to other motorcycles and other paralytic riders. To demonstrate the advantages of additive manufacturing a digitally modular seat design was created.
The project started by a 3D scanning of Ulla’s motorcycle and by creating the first design concept of the seat. After this the first design was manufactured and tested on the field. As far as the team was aware, anything like this seat hasn’t been created, tested or used before. Because of the absence of reference on the subject, the team didn’t really know how the seat would act in high speed and quick movements. During the test drive it appeared that the seat was performing better than expected.
A second version of the seat was created to improve the design. The second seat’s design, however, was too large to perform well and improvements needed to be made to the next design. The improvements included reducing weight and production cost by reducing material consumption. Also, the seat’s movements were too wide. It was assumed that the movements would take too much time in the racing situation, in which all movements need to be very quick. Thus, the length of movement needed to be reduced. The shape and appearance of the seat also needed to be improved. The shape of the seat didn’t match the shape of the motorcycle and stood out too much. These features were redesigned and the design process led to the third version of the seat.
This study led to patenting the structure of the seat. The case study culminated in International Bridgestone Handy Race in Le Mans, France. The seat was tested in real competition when Ulla rode the race with the final design of the seat and won her own series.