Planning and optimisation of manufacturing process chains for functionally graded components—part 1: methodological foundations

Functional gradation denotes a continuous distribution of properties over at least one spatial dimension of a component made of a single material. This distribution is tailored with respect to the later intended application of the component (Biermann et al. in Proceedings of the 1st international conference on thermo-mechanically graded materials, collaborative research centre transregio 30, Verlag Wissenschaftliche Scripten, Auerbach, pp 195–200, 2012). The improved utilisation of the material enables light weight design and a reduced resource consumption, thus offering an alternative for modern composite materials. However, their production requires complex thermo-mechanically coupled manufacturing process chains that increase the effort for the holistic design. To realise the full potential of functional gradation, novel ways for the planning and analysis of the corresponding manufacturing process chains have to be developed. This contribution proposes methods for the description of functionally graded components, as well as the synthetisation and optimisation of their corresponding process chains. The process knowledge, models and methods required are consolidated in a comprehensive planning framework.