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Self-supporting overhang structures produced by additive manufacturing through electron beam melting

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to identify the limitations of self-supporting structures and evaluate the deformations associated with overhang structures fabricated without support structures. To achieve these objectives, a series of experiments involving different overhang geometries were designed, fabricated, and evaluated. The formation of defects during the fabrication of overhanging structures is detailed, and the self-supporting limits for different overhangs are established. A segmentation strategy for the support structure addition is proposed and evaluated in different configurations for ledge overhangs to reduce the amount of support structures without affecting the overhang accuracy. Based on the inferences of this study, design rules are proposed for producing overhang structures through electron beam melting. The results identified the self-supporting limits for different overhang geometries. In addition, the proposed segmentation strategy for support generation in ledge overhangs resulted in reduction of support structure materials and post-processing time without any effect on the quality of the fabricated overhang.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the Deanship of Scientific Research and RSSU at King Saud University for their technical support.

Funding

This study received funding from the Raytheon Chair for Systems Engineering. The authors are grateful to the Raytheon Chair for Systems Engineering for funding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Industrial Engineering Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

    Wadea Ameen & Abdulrahman Al-Ahmari

  2. Raytheon Chair for Systems Engineering (RCSE Chair), Advanced Manufacturing Institute, King Saud University, P.O. Box 800, Riyadh, 11421, Saudi Arabia

    Wadea Ameen, Abdulrahman Al-Ahmari & Muneer Khan Mohammed

Authors
  1. Wadea Ameen
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  2. Abdulrahman Al-Ahmari
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  3. Muneer Khan Mohammed
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Correspondence to Wadea Ameen.

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Ameen, W., Al-Ahmari, A. & Mohammed, M.K. Self-supporting overhang structures produced by additive manufacturing through electron beam melting. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 104, 2215–2232 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-019-04007-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-019-04007-3

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