Feasibility study for use of selective laser melting-based additive manufacturing technology as exemplified by titanium space hardware components

The paper describes a feasibility study for introducing additive manufacturing technologies based on layer-by-layer selective laser melting to production of complex hard-to-manufacture titanium components for space hardware. The study is based on comparative analysis of technologies for manufacturing a titanium bracket used in the structure of the carbon fiber frame for the solar array of a spacecraft. Three types of manufacturing technologies are compared: two standard ones (the original and the optimized) and the proposed selective laser melting technology. For the additive manufacturing technology the workpiece is topologically optimized to match the loads determined through the standard testing procedure resulting in mass savings for the end product. The used material is analyzed and the process of selective laser melting is simulated in order to determine warping and introduce correction factors. The following performance indicators are compared for manufacturing technologies based on standard (subtractive) methods and the selective laser melting: the cost of materials, required labor input, the costs of tooling, cutting tools and the manufacturing cycle.