Design of an integrated process chain to support the manufacturing of Ti6Al4V components

Nowadays, the industry evolves towards the production of complex components with added value; most of them are made of materials with higher capabilities, such as the titanium alloys. Titanium alloys have attractive characteristics, e. g. high strength, low density and good corrosion resistance, which offer many potential applications. In the automotive industry, titanium alloys have been recently introduced with the aim of developing new vehicles with reduced weight, and thus optimized fuel consumption. In the aerospace industry, titanium alloys are currently the most used materials in aero engines, with a volume fraction of approximately 40%. On the one hand, the maturity in the aero engine design has been reached to a point where the manufacturers are focusing more on productivity, which implies the development of new technologies and processes, thus the development of new manufacturing strategies and new process chains. The introduction of materials with new capabilities represents challenges for the manufacturing technologies as these materials are difficult to machine. Their processes are defined and characterised only when knowledge and deep understanding about the material performance is available. And cost minimisation can take place when manufacturing knowledge is retrieved and reused in the process planning. On the other hand, more and more micro components and micro features have been introduced into diverse types of industrial products and market sectors. Micro components and micro features are used in the aerospace and automotive industry and for medical and biomedical applications. There are several micro manufacturing processes but they are quite limited to machine 3D free-form micro structures in a wide range of materials, mainly hard metals. Thus, a combination and integration of micro manufacturing processes is required. Thus, facing these challenges, the aim of this work is to design an integrated process chain to support the manufacturing of titanium components using a formal approach. Such approach may include a scientific method to fulfil design and quality requirements and minimise costs; and a tool to retrieve, characterise and share relevant engineering data, generated during the manufacturing process in order to avoid the loss of manufacturing knowledge. Summarising, this research is focus on the following issues. • Analysis of the machining processes to manufacture titanium compressor airfoils and the design of an integrated process chain to reduce manufacturing costs. • Research on diverse technologies to manufacture micro features which, for instance, may add functionality to compressor components. • Development of an integrated methodology, based on axiomatic system design, to enhance productivity and reduce manufacturing costs. • Design and development of a technology data catalogue to characterise manufacturing knowledge necessary for the development of process chains. And development of semantic nets, components of the technology data catalogue, which enable the dynamic navigation through the information assuring the easy sharing of knowledge.