Additive Manufacturing of Tooling for Refrigeration Cabinet Foaming Processes [electronic resource].

Published:: Washington, D.C. : United States. Dept. of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, 2016.
Oak Ridge, Tenn. : Distributed by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information, U.S. Dept. of Energy
Additional Creators:: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
United States. Department of Energy. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
United States. Department of Energy. Office of Scientific and Technical Information
Access Online:: www.osti.gov

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Summary:

The primary objective of this project was to leverage the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) process and materials into a long term, quick change tooling concept to drastically reduce product lead and development timelines and costs. Current refrigeration foam molds are complicated to manufacture involving casting several aluminum parts in an approximate shape, machining components of the molds and post fitting and shimming of the parts in an articulated fixture. The total process timeline can take over 6 months. The foaming process is slower than required for production, therefore multiple fixtures, 10 to 27, are required per refrigerator model. Molds are particular to a specific product configuration making mixed model assembly challenging for sequencing, mold changes or auto changeover features. The initial goal was to create a tool leveraging the ORNL materials and additive process to build a tool in 4 to 6 weeks or less. A secondary goal was to create common fixture cores and provide lightweight fixture sections that could be revised in a very short time to increase equipment flexibility reduce lead times, lower the barriers to first production trials, and reduce tooling costs.

Subject(s):

Engineering

Note:

Published through SciTech Connect.
07/29/2016.
"ornl/tm-2016/351"
"ED2802000"
"CEED492"
"CRADA/NFE-15-05744"
Brian K Post; David Nuttall; Michael Cukier; Michael Hile.

Funding Information:

AC05-00OR22725

View MARC record | catkey: 23767773