A Promising Pathway toward Cost-efficient Manufacturing of Multi-Material/Functional Parts

Advanced multi-material structures are known for their superior characteristics due to the synergy of different materials. However, the multi-stage and high cost of their manufacturing processes are the main drawbacks in expanding their application in cost-effective industries such as automotive. To counter these challenges, hybrid manufacturing approaches can be utilized to overcome limitations associated with earlier technologies, while adapting themselves to incorporate new materials and unique features. Moreover, hybrid manufacturing increases the complexity and technical requirements of the system, thereby making product imitation difficult. Motivated by the aforementioned aspects, several manufacturing concepts have recently been developed by this research group based on various integrations of injection, forming, foaming, and additive manufacturing processes, which will be introduced in this presentation. While these integration concepts were initially proposed to overcome the manufacturing difficulties of multi-material components, the unique additional features provided by these concepts hypothesize such hybrid molding technologies as a promising pathway toward cost-efficient manufacturing of multi-functional products.