The implementation of additive manufacturing enables the the re-thinking of a product towards function-oriented design. This study proposes a method, which uses a set of rules and indicators to implement functional integration, part consolidation, part separation and on-demand manufacturing onto a conventional prodcut architecture to restructure it into an AM-oriented product architecture. The feasibility of the method is demonstrated on an assembly from the field of high temperature applications.

Additive manufacturing offers great potential in geometric design through the layer-by-layer production of components. This is often used in the development of additively manufactured components to make components lighter. An even greater reduction in mass is possible if several components are combined into a more complex component. However, as complexity increases, so do the manufacturing costs, due to a higher demand for supporting structure, reworking and longer production time. Especially for complex components, which make poor use of the space available in the additive manufacturing system, component separation can be a useful way of reducing manufacturing costs. Therefore, a procedure for automated component separation is presented, which determines an optimal cutting plane with respect to the manufacturing costs. The presented procedure is evaluated using two exemplary components where a reduction of manufacturing costs up to 54 % could be achieved.