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Design for additive manufacturing: a comprehensive review of the tendencies and limitations of methodologies

Luis Lisandro Lopez Taborda (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Atlantico, Barranquilla, Colombia; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia and Department of Development, Research and Innovation, 3D Ingenieria BQ SAS, Barranquilla, Colombia)
Heriberto Maury (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia)
Jovanny Pacheco (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universidad del Norte, Barranquilla, Colombia)

Rapid Prototyping Journal

ISSN: 1355-2546

Article publication date: 4 June 2021

Issue publication date: 14 July 2021

1145

Abstract

Purpose

There are many investigations in design methodologies, but there are also divergences and convergences as there are so many points of view. This study aims to evaluate to corroborate and deepen other researchers’ findings, dissipate divergences and provide directing to future work on the subject from a methodological and convergent perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

This study analyzes the previous reviews (about 15 reviews) and based on the consensus and the classifications provided by these authors, a significant sample of research is analyzed in the design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) theme (approximately 80 articles until June of 2017 and approximately 280–300 articles until February of 2019) through descriptive statistics, to corroborate and deepen the findings of other researchers.

Findings

Throughout this work, this paper found statistics indicating that the main areas studied are: multiple objective optimizations, execution of the design, general DFAM and DFAM for functional performance. Among the main conclusions: there is a lack of innovation in the products developed with the methodologies, there is a lack of exhaustivity in the methodologies, there are few efforts to include environmental aspects in the methodologies, many of the methods include economic and cost evaluation, but are not very explicit and broad (sustainability evaluation), it is necessary to consider a greater variety of functions, among other conclusions

Originality/value

The novelty in this study is the methodology. It is very objective, comprehensive and quantitative. The starting point is not the case studies nor the qualitative criteria, but the figures and quantities of methodologies. The main contribution of this review article is to guide future work on the subject from a methodological and convergent perspective and this article provides a broad database with articles containing information on many issues to make decisions: design methodology; optimization; processes, selection of parts and materials; cost and product management; mechanical, electrical and thermal properties; health and environmental impact, etc.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Universidad del Norte and also by the Universidad del Atlantico by call for proposal RES001735.

Citation

Lopez Taborda, L.L., Maury, H. and Pacheco, J. (2021), "Design for additive manufacturing: a comprehensive review of the tendencies and limitations of methodologies", Rapid Prototyping Journal, Vol. 27 No. 5, pp. 918-966. https://doi.org/10.1108/RPJ-11-2019-0296

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited

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