Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Publication
    A life cycle assessment of joining processes in the automotive industry, illustrated by the example of an EV battery case
    ( 2023) ; ; ;
    Schmolke, Tobias
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    Spohr, Sebastian
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    Meschut, Gerson
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    Eckstein, Lutz
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    Current ecological, economic and social changes are leading to a change in development, design and production of future vehicles. In this context, it is the stated goal of many manufacturers to advance the development of an environmentally friendly vehicle and climate-neutral production throughout the entire supply chain. This study presents a comparative life cycle assessment of the joining processes laser beam welding, laser brazing and resistance spot welding. For this purpose, an approach tailored to welding processes is presented and applied to the example of a battery case for electric vehicles. For the welding process under consideration, the main influences on the resulting environmental impact categories are evaluated and compared. The requirements for ecologically efficient welding processes are discussed and outlined. The results show that particularly the materials involved, such as the consumption of the filler material, have the greatest environmental impact and thus offer the greatest potential for savings.
  • Publication
    Result quality evaluation of Directed Energy Deposition Additive Manufacturing simulations with progressive simplification of transient heat-source motion
    ( 2022-09-05) ;
    Elsner, Beatrix A.M.
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    Neubauer, Ingo
    ;
    ;
    Directed Energy Deposition (DED) additive manufacturing has recently been adopted in the industry for the build-up of structural components with weld lengths up to kilometers. As with all welding processes, DED suffers from thermal distortion, causing loss of dimensional accuracy and risk of cracking. Currently, process optimization with objective to minimize distortion requires expensive experimental trial-and-error. With numerical simulation of the DED process, this distortion compensation can be performed virtually, significantly reducing experimental trials. Although such approaches are generally available, their widespread adoption is currently being hampered by long computational times for large builds. This work presents a novel approach to reduce the calculation time by a simplification of the transient heat-source motion. This approach is assessed in terms of result accuracy for an industrial-scale component by progressively reducing the resolution of the heat-source motion. Calculation times as well as distortions in comparison to experimental trials are investigated.