PROGRESSES IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A STEP-NC COMPLIANT ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM

Abstract

The new standard of numerical control, known as STEP-NC, is categorized as the future of the advanced manufacturing systems. Greater flexibility and interoperability are some potential benefits offered by STEP-NC to meet the challenges of the new industrial landscape that is envisaged with the advent of Industry 4.0. Meanwhile, STEP-NC object-oriented programming has been partially applied and developed for machining processes (milling, turning...). But with the processes of additive manufacturing has not happened the same and the development is still incipient. This work presents the advances in the development of a new STEP-NC compliant additive manufacturing system, focusing particularly on the development of the information model. The application model activities in the IDEF0 nomenclature and application reference model in EXPRESS are presented. The AM-layer-feature concept has been introduced to define the manufacturing feature of additive processes based on material deposition layer-by-layer. Finally, a STEP-NC program generated from the EXPRESS model is presented, which can be implemented on an additive manufacturing system to validate the proposed model.

Keywords

• manufatura aditiva
• STEP-NC
• cadeia digital
• interoperabilidade
• indústria 4.0