Extracting features for manufacture of parts from existing components based on combining additive and subtractive technologies

The development of additive manufacturing (AM) technology provides the possibility of producing complex parts (including internal complex features) that are difficult to manufacture by machining. However, AM technologies also have some limitations, such as low-dimensional accuracy and long production times. Recently, combining additive manufacturing technology with CNC machining is gaining significant attention. This combination not only takes advantages of individual techniques, but also minimizes their disadvantages. In this paper, taking into account consolidated benefits of such technique combination, an alternative remanufacturing strategy is proposed. The strategy allows end-of-life parts (or existing parts) to be reused directly for manufacture of new parts (or final parts) without involving the material recycling stage. In addition, the final part is intended for another product, namely the existing part has a new life and new usage in its life cycle. To achieve the geometry and quality of final part, a sequence of additive, subtractive manufacturing and inspection operations will be generated. For this purpose, additive manufacturing features and machining features are first identified and extracted from the available information of the existing and final parts. This paper particularly focuses on a feature extraction approach, which is developed using the knowledge of additive manufacturing and CNC machining processes, technological requirements, and available resources. The major criteria and constraints have been defined and applied during the feature extraction process. The extracted features and their relationships will be used as the inputs for designing the process planning. Finally, a case study is used to illustrate the proposed approach.