An investigation of additive manufacturing technologies for development of end-use components: A case study

Prior research has shown that additive manufacturing (AM) can be used to make functional and end-use components, however the absence of design guide has led to restricted use of AM in industry. This research aims to redesign a pressure reducer valve integrated into an end-cap as a subcomponent of composite pressure vessel (CPV), which is manufactured by AM. First, a number of design criteria are defined based on the shortcomings of the current pressure reducers manufactured by conventional methods. Then the design procedure is pursued by several iterations using material jetting, material extrusion, and powder bed fusion which are known as commonly used methods of AM. Through this research, the design imperfections and experiences are identified in terms of lessons learned, design rules and an overall design procedure is established.