TY - JOUR

T1 - Selection of a suitable additive manufacturing process for soft robotics application using three-way decision-making

AU - Gangwar, Sudhanshu

AU - Saxena, Prateek

AU - Virmani, Naveen

AU - Biermann, Tobias

AU - Steinnagel, Carl

AU - Lachmayer, Roland

N1 - Funding Information: The authors would like to thank the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst), Germany, for funding under the DAAD-KOSPIE exchange program. The authors would also like to thank the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), India, under start-up research grant (SERB-SRG) project titled “3D printing of continuous carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites using Fused Filament Fabrication” - project number SRG/2022/002225. The project “Computer tomograph for optomechatronic systems” was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) - project number 432176896, and Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy within the Cluster of Excellence PhoenixD (EXC 2122, Project ID 390833453) are also acknowledged for providing the financial assistance for carrying out this study.

PY - 2024/5

Y1 - 2024/5

N2 - Additive manufacturing technology has fostered its significant application in soft robotics fabrication due to the design freedom and ease of realizing complex geometries. The selection of an appropriate additive manufacturing process (out-of-material extrusion, vat photopolymerization, and powder bed fusion) is vital for the fabrication of soft robotics as the process greatly influences the quality of the part further affecting the functionality and service life. These pneumatically actuated robots in their service life are subjected to fatigue loading and handling of very delicate tasks; thus, the porosity (including pores characterization) and surface roughness are two critical quality parameters which should be considered while choosing the fabrication process. In this study, a three-way decision-making (a multi-criteria decision-making tool) approach is implemented for selecting an appropriate additive manufacturing process for the fabrication of high-quality parts for soft robotics applications. The results (ranking of AM processes) obtained using the proposed approach are compared with the conventional decision-making techniques, namely TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), MOORA (Multi-Objective Optimization by Ratio Analysis), and VIKOR (VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija). The sensitivity analysis carried out in this work also suggests that three-way decision-making is as effective as other MCDM tools and the vat photopolymerization process is the most suitable out of all for fabricating TPU actuators.

AB - Additive manufacturing technology has fostered its significant application in soft robotics fabrication due to the design freedom and ease of realizing complex geometries. The selection of an appropriate additive manufacturing process (out-of-material extrusion, vat photopolymerization, and powder bed fusion) is vital for the fabrication of soft robotics as the process greatly influences the quality of the part further affecting the functionality and service life. These pneumatically actuated robots in their service life are subjected to fatigue loading and handling of very delicate tasks; thus, the porosity (including pores characterization) and surface roughness are two critical quality parameters which should be considered while choosing the fabrication process. In this study, a three-way decision-making (a multi-criteria decision-making tool) approach is implemented for selecting an appropriate additive manufacturing process for the fabrication of high-quality parts for soft robotics applications. The results (ranking of AM processes) obtained using the proposed approach are compared with the conventional decision-making techniques, namely TOPSIS (Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), MOORA (Multi-Objective Optimization by Ratio Analysis), and VIKOR (VIseKriterijumska Optimizacija). The sensitivity analysis carried out in this work also suggests that three-way decision-making is as effective as other MCDM tools and the vat photopolymerization process is the most suitable out of all for fabricating TPU actuators.

KW - Additive manufacturing

KW - Multi-criteria decision-making

KW - Soft matter

KW - Soft robotics

KW - Three-way decision-making

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85188589290&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s00170-024-13398-x

DO - 10.1007/s00170-024-13398-x

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85188589290

VL - 132

SP - 2003

EP - 2015

JO - International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

JF - International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology

SN - 0268-3768

IS - 3-4

ER -