Path planning of complicated hierarchical thin-wall structures using multi-material additive manufacturing technology

Abstract

Abstract Multilayer thin-wall structures have demonstrated significant application potential in wearable devices, pressure vessels, and aerospace industries, with additive manufacturing (AM) poised to further unlock their capabilities. Although path planning, a crucial aspect of AM, has been extensively studied for homogeneous structures, research on path planning for heterogeneous structures remains limited. This study introduces a novel path planning algorithm, termed CPCNHTS, for generating continuous paths in complex non-rotating bodies with hierarchical thin-walled structures. CPCNHTS encompasses adaptive slicing, path offset, and robotic postprocessing techniques. The adaptive slicing method is employed to enhance the slicing model’s accuracy through volume error control. Moreover, the path offset method is designed to derive the printing path using a parallel curve of the inner contour. Identification of the inner contour is based on the curvatures and areas of single and double contours, respectively. The robotic postprocessing method is employed to convert the printing path into executable codes for multimaterial additive equipment. As a compelling application of the CPCNHTS algorithm, a limb prosthetic socket was successfully fabricated, highlighting the remarkable potential of this approach within the wearable devices domain.