Large-scale additive manufacturing for rapid vehicle prototyping

A case study from Oak Ridge National Laboratory bridges the “powertrain-in-the-loop” development process with vehicle systems implementation using big area additive manufacturing (BAAM).

In model-based development of vehicle powertrains, through hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) to mule integration, a new enabling design tool is emerging from recent advances in large-scale additive manufacturing (AM) that has become known as big area additive manufacturing (BAAM). AM creates components directly from a computer model and is well-suited for rapid prototyping as it is extremely flexible and enables the rapid creation of very complex geometries with minimal waste. This technology could be transformative for many sectors including automotive.

Until recently, AM processes were constrained to relatively small scales for both polymers and metals. The polymer AM processes used in these applications and studies have been limited in scale due to the constraint of needing reduced oxygen and constant heat environments. In addition, there are some issues with residual stresses during the AM process with both metals and polymers that have made larger-scale printed parts difficult to produce with precision and dimensions needed for automotive applications.