金屬粉床式融熔虛擬製造技術

金屬積層製造中的粉床式燒熔技術(Powder Bed Fusion, PBF)正以快速成長之姿，已漸漸從打樣應用到終端零件應用，在航太、模具、醫材等高值產業中嶄露頭角。然而此技術需克服急速加熱冷卻引起之熱應力所產生的殘留應力破壞問題，殘留熱應力輕則導致成品翹曲變形無法達到設計規格要求，重則可能會引起機台機構損耗、停機導致製程停擺，浪費製程材料與時間。透過工研院雷射與積層製造科技中心研發之虛擬製造技術，製造者可在長達數天或數周的製程啟動前進行虛擬製造，預視製造結果是否有風險或成品精度會否無法達到要求，協助製造者強化設計降低製程風險。此技術已開發成一獨立軟體－ITRI AMSIM，讓使用者快速得到預測結果並改善設計，可大幅減少因搭配試誤法之真實製程所造成之材料與時間成本浪費，以提高PBF設備投資報酬率。

Powder bed fusion (PBF) is a metal additive manufacturing technology that has been rapidly applied in aerospace, molding, and medical devices manufacturing industries to produce end-use parts. However, the PBF process involves a highly localized laser heating, resulting in a large thermal gradient that induces residual thermal stress and deformation in the finished build. The excessive thermal stress in the part leads to final part fails to fit in size, or more severely, causes termination of the manufacturing process due to recoater crash issues, wasting a lot of time and cost for those failed builds. ITRI develops a virtual printing technology to predict the outcome of PBF process that spans for days to weeks in just a few hours, assisting manufacturers to visualize the possible build risks and prevent failures. ITRI AMSIM is developed based on the virtual printing technology for PBF process; it provides users to visualize the predicted outcome of the process and optimize the design for first-time-right printing. It further reduces waste of time and cost in actual manufacturing process and improves the return on investment of PBF equipment.