This paper aims to investigate the current state, technological challenges, economic opportunities and future directions in the growing “indirect” hybrid manufacturing ecosystem, which integrates traditional metal casting with the production of tooling via additive manufacturing (AM) process including three-dimensional sand printing (3DSP) and printed wax patterns.,A survey was conducted among 100 participants from foundries and AM service providers across the USA to understand the current adoption of AM in metal casting as a function of engineering specifications, production demand, volume and cost metrics. In addition, current technological and logistical challenges that are encountered by the foundries are identified to gather insight into the future direction of this evolving supply chain.,One of the major findings from this study is that hard tooling costs (i.e. patterns/core boxes) are the greatest challenge in low volume production for foundries. Hence, AM and 3DSP offer the greatest cost-benefit for these low volume production runs as it does not require the need for hard tooling to produce much higher profit premium castings. It is evident that there are major opportunities for the casting supply chain to benefit from an advanced digital ecosystem that seamlessly integrates AM and 3DSP into foundry operations. The critical challenges for adoption of 3DSP in current foundry operations are categorized into as follows: capital cost of the equipment, which cannot be justified due to limited demand for 3DSP molds/cores by casting buyers, transportation of 3DSP molds and cores, access to 3DSP, limited knowledge of 3DSP, limitations in current design tools to integrate 3DSP design principles and long lead times to acquire 3DSP molds/cores.,Based on the findings of this study, indirect hybrid metal AM supply chains, i.e. 3DSP metal casting supply chains is proposed, as 3DSP replaces traditional mold-making in the sand casting process flow, no/limited additional costs and resources would be required for qualification and certification of the cast parts made from three-dimensional printed sand molds. Access to 3DSP resources can be addressed by establishing a robust 3DSP metal casting supply chain, which will also enable existing foundries to rapidly acquire new 3DSP-related knowledge.,This original survey from 100 small and medium enterprises including foundries and AM service providers suggests that establishing 3DSP hubs around original equipment manufacturers as a shared resource to produce molds and cores would be beneficial. This provides traditional foundries means to continue mass production of castings using existing hard tooling while integrating 3DSP for new complex low volume parts, replacement parts, legacy parts and prototyping.

中文翻译：

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整合最古老和最新制造工艺的挑战和机遇：金属铸造和增材制造

本文旨在研究不断增长的“间接”混合制造生态系统中的现状、技术挑战、经济机遇和未来方向，该生态系统将传统金属铸造与通过增材制造 (AM) 工艺（包括 3D 砂打印）的模具生产相结合。 (3DSP) 和印刷蜡模。,一项调查对来自美国各地铸造厂和 AM 服务提供商的 100 名参与者进行了调查，以了解 AM 在金属铸造中的当前采用作为工程规范、生产需求、数量和成本指标的函数。此外，还确定了代工厂目前遇到的技术和物流挑战，以深入了解这个不断发展的供应链的未来方向。这项研究的主要发现之一是硬模具成本（即模型/芯盒）是代工厂小批量生产的最大挑战。因此，AM 和 3DSP 为这些小批量生产运行提供了最大的成本效益，因为它不需要硬模具来生产利润更高的优质铸件。很明显，铸造供应链有很多机会可以从先进的数字生态系统中受益，该生态系统将 AM 和 3DSP 无缝集成到铸造业务中。在当前的代工运营中采用 3DSP 的关键挑战分为以下几类：设备的资本成本，由于铸造买家对 3DSP 模具/型芯的需求有限，无法证明其合理性、3DSP 模具和型芯的运输、3DSP 的获取, 对 3DSP 的了解有限，当前设计工具集成 3DSP 设计原理的局限性以及获得 3DSP 模具/核心的交货时间长。基于本研究的结果，提出了间接混合金属 AM 供应链，即 3DSP 金属铸造供应链，因为 3DSP 取代了传统的在砂型铸造工艺流程中进行模具制造，对由 3D 打印砂型制成的铸件进行鉴定和认证不需要/有限的额外成本和资源。可以通过建立强大的 3DSP 金属铸造供应链来解决对 3DSP 资源的访问，这也将使现有铸造厂能够快速获取新的 3DSP 相关知识。这项针对包括代工厂和 AM 服务提供商在内的 100 家中小企业的原始调查表明，围绕原始设备制造商建立 3DSP 中心作为生产模具和型芯的共享资源将是有益的。这为传统铸造厂提供了使用现有硬模具继续大规模生产铸件的方法，同时为新的复杂小批量零件、替换零件、遗留零件和原型集成 3DSP。