Assessment of hybrid design for structural parts of vehicles in material handling

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a major focus of current research activities. On the one side additive manufacturing of metals offers multiple opportunities for the usage in structural parts of machines and vehicles for high costs. On the other side the much less expensive plastic materials used in additive manufacturing lack reasonable material properties for many of these use cases. A hybrid design approach with a combination of materials offers a promising solution by maintaining advantages of additive manufactured part design. Limitations of material strength are mastered with supporting elements made from other materials.