Design and Fabrication of Industry Based Hydraulic Manifold Using Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

The main objective of our project is to re-design the hydraulic manifold and fabricate the prototype using 3D printing to reduce weight, improve flow performance, and reduce the cost. The simple existing industrial manifold block is designed using CAD software. Then analysis of the flow field characteristics and change in pressure of right-angled flow passage of supply line and return line is carried out in the typical hydraulic manifold block which is made from the conventional manufacturing process. Then to redesign the industrial manifold effectively with angled flow passage and analyze the optimization level. This modified design mainly reduces the major loss in the fluid called pressure loss and reduces the velocity of fluid during the change in direction of flow. As we are in the era of industry 4.0, the fabrication of this product is to be made with the currently emerging technology called additive manufacturing. Another reason to go with AM is because of the complex structure of this manifold. It will significantly reduce the production time and machining cost. Our project comes up with producing the 3D printed prototype of the modified manifold from the industry. For this analysis process, we have selected the materials Aluminium alloy (AL 6061-T6) and Stainless steel (SS-316), because of their high strength to weight ratio and low material cost. Hence it will reduce the overall production cost and it will greatly reduce the weight.