Developing a manufacturing technology for the components made of a multiphase perfect material

Abstract

A component made up of a perfect combination of different materials (most often including homogeneous materials and three different types of heterogeneous materials, i.e., composite materials, functionally graded materials, and heterogeneous materials with a periodic microstructure) in its different portions for a specific application is considered to be a component made of a multiphase perfect material. To design and represent such components, a corresponding computer-aided design method and a CAD modeling method have been developed. Although, there is no existing manufacturing method and facility for such components. Their fabrication entails four steps described in this paper: analysis of the requirements of their manufacture; review of the currently available layered manufacturing, micro-fabrications, and hybrid manufacturing technologies; presentation of a new hybrid layered manufacturing technology (including its manufacturing process and the principle scheme of its corresponding manufacturing facilities); and implementation of the manufacturing simulation by means of virtual manufacturing technology. © 2008 Springer-Verlag London Limited.