Metal additive manufactured, topology optimized components have already demonstrated the immense impact of weight reduction, resource efficiency, and mechanical performance. The mono-materials with homogeneous material properties are often insufficient to meet today’s heterogeneous application requirements. New multi-material components with locally tailored mechanical, electrical, thermal, or magnetic properties must be developed to meet the new and challenging requirements and significantly improve the component performance. Based on the immense potential for 3D printed multi-material components, current problems will be solved within this project and result in high-impact industrial products: Material Design, multi-material 3D printing, component design, and sustainability. These factors will be supported by numerical simulations and validated by use case experiments.

MADE-3D aims to enhance the additive manufacturing process in order to enable the multi-material processing for multi-material components with locally tailored properties to meet the challenging application requirements and improve component performance. The focus relies on material design, process design, component design, and sustainability and will be supported by numerical simulations and computational approaches. MADE-3D will utilize a lean system design approach with science-based models using Direct Energy Deposition (DED) and Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF). Besides, will investigate the circular material cycle to achieve sustainable manufacturing routes. The results of the project will significantly impact the entire process chain of 3D printed multi-material components, from computational material-design concepts to industrialization and sustainability.