An adapted case-based reasoning system for design and manufacturing of tailored forming multi-material components

New manufacturing technologies need suitable design methods to deal with the presented challenges. Equally, design methods must deliver innovative solutions and give a direction to the development of these manufacturing technologies. One of these in-development technologies is tailored forming, a process-chain to manufacture higher-performance hybrid components. Therefore, this process requires a proper design method to deal with the challenges of multi-material design and the manufacturing restrictions involved. The lack of a fluent communication between design and manufacturing is, however, an obstacle to achieve the desired goals. With this intent, the present study wants to bridge both fields by creating a common platform for information exchange. For that, a case-based reasoning environment is used as an interface and adapted to allow the flow of both kinds of data. On the design side, a parametric model is constructed and simulated through an automated interface, generating a large solution space. On the manufacturing side, the geometries are digitized and compared with the simulated results. At the end, the method is able to deliver an optimized design that covers the restrictions of the manufacturing process, allowing the further development of tailored forming technology.