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Radial slicing for helical-shaped advanced manufacturing applications

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Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is transforming industries all around the world focusing on areas including advanced robotics and automation, sensor technology and data analytics. The authors are involved in a project developing a multi-robot material extrusion 3D printer to print a gravity separation spiral (GSS), an instrument used in the mining industry to separate mineral slurry into different density components. Compared with traditional mould-based manufacturing, this new additive manufacturing method will significantly reduce manufacturing tooling costs, improve the customisation to enable the production of bespoke GSS that each processes different minerals and reduce worker exposure to hazardous materials. Slicing and printing large-scale helical objects in conventional horizontal layer addition would result in an unreasonable amount of waste material from support structures, and poor surface quality due to step-wise bumps. This paper presents a novel slicing algorithm using concentric vertical ray lines to slice objects radially, enabling layers to be deposited progressively in the same fashion. This method can be applied in large-scale additive manufacturing where objects are printed by a robot in a radial direction, which is different from layered vertical printing in conventional additive systems. An example GSS is sliced to generate motion plans for a print head affixed to the end effector of a robot arm. Then through simulations, it is shown how a robot’s expected manipulability measure can be used to predict and ensure the successful completion of the print.

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Acknowledgments

Thank you to Rapido, in particular, Hervé Harvard and Michael Behrens for establishing this overall research activity and leading the overall R&D engineering project. The authors also thank Jordan Henry for creating the simulation environment of the printer according to the actual dimensions. Additionally, we also thank Sheila Sutjiptu and Yujun Lai for providing robotics-related feedback. We also thank UTS:RI /CAS for providing required resources to carry out this research.

Funding

This research is supported by UTS, The Commonwealth of Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (Innovative Manufacturing CRC Ltd) and Downer, via its subsidiary Mineral Technologies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Autonomous Systems, University of Technology Sydney, Ultimo, Australia

    Nuwan Munasinghe & Gavin Paul

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  1. Nuwan Munasinghe
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  2. Gavin Paul
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Correspondence to Nuwan Munasinghe.

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This research is supported by UTS, in particular, Rapido; The Commonwealth of Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science (Innovative Manufacturing CRC Ltd); and Downer, via its subsidiary Mineral Technologies.

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Munasinghe, N., Paul, G. Radial slicing for helical-shaped advanced manufacturing applications. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 112, 1089–1100 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-05999-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00170-020-05999-z

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