Aircraft part substitution via additive manufacturing: design, simulation, fabrication and testing

Purpose This paper aims to provide a case study focused on the substitution through selective laser melting of a part typically fabricated by traditional manufacturing. Design/methodology/approach To exploit the additive manufacturing (AM) advantages, the retrieving of the reconfiguration part data was provided, the process strategies by means of the interchange file handling and pre and post-processing were investigated and a re-design of the part was developed. Finally, the fabricated part was tested and analyzed. Findings Results claimed that a reconfiguration of the manufacturing framework plays an important role at each step of the process otherwise many AM benefits can be lost. In the paper, a set of recommendations, suggestions and hints regarding the implementation of AM for part substitutions is provided. Research limitations/implications Many aspects of the AM adoption, such as the production cost, energy consumption, sustainability and production volume, depend upon the geometry, batch size and other impactful factors, and thus they need to be studied in a case-by-case manner. Practical implications The proposed approaches have the concrete aim to address industrial resources toward the maximization of AM benefits in part substituting. Originality/value In this paper, the substitution of a part is fully undertaken from the early data collection to the manufactured part testing providing integrated approaches for each process step.