Design for Manufacturing(DFM)-Module-1

Major phases of Design (BLOCK DIAGRAM)

1. Identification of the problem

Files
Unavailable YES R&D
information Patent
s

NO
2. Functional requirements

3. Concept formulation and preliminary layout.

Material 4. Preliminary material and process selection.

properties,
Design Codes

Modeling and
Information
simulation
sufficient to
reach feasible Prototype
solution? Expt.Work

YES
Sales
5. Evaluate solution with functional requirements. Marketing
Prospective customers

6. Acceptable NO Revise Functional

Design? requirements

YES
7. Detail Design

Specifications for standard

8. Detailing Materials and processes specified. items.

YES Design Changes

necessary

NO
9. Bill of Materials Marketing Purchase and
Accounting.

Manufacturing

10. Customer
Engineering design is usually an iterative process, which involves a series of decision-making
steps where each decision establishes the framework for the next one.
However, a design usually passes through most of the phases, which are shown in the Fig above.
1. Identification of the problem and evaluating the need in order to define the objective of the
design represent the first phase of the design in most cases.
2. Functional requirements and operational limitations are directly related to the required
characteristics of the product and are specified as a result of the active phase I.
3. System definition, concept formulation, and preliminary layout are usually completed, in this
order, before evaluating the operating loads and determining the form of the different
components or structural members.
4. Consulting design codes and collecting information on material properties will allow the
designer to perform preliminary material selection, preliminary design calculations, and rough
estimation of manufacturing requirements.
5. The evaluation phase involves a comparison of the expected performance of the design with
the performance requirements established in phase 2. Evaluation of the different solution and
selection of the optimum alternative can be performed using decision making techniques,
modelling techniques, experimental work and /or prototypes.
6. In some cases, it is not possible to arrive at a design that fulfills all the requirements and
compiles with all the limitations established in phase2. This means that these requirements and
compiles with all the limitations established in phase 2.
7. Having arrived at final design, the project then enters the detailed design stage where it is
converted in to a detailed and finished form for suitable for use in manufacturing. The
preliminary design layouts any available detail drawings, models and prototypes, and access to
the developer of the preliminary design usually form the basis of the detailed design.
8. The next step in the detailed design phase is detailing, which involves the creation of detail
drawings for every part .All the information that is necessary to unambiguously define the part
should be recorded in detailed drawing. The material of the part should also be selected and
specified by reference to standard codes.
9. An important part of the detailed design phase is the preparation of the bill of materials,
sometimes called parts list .The bill of materials is a hierarchical listing of everything that goes
into the final product including fasteners and purchased parts. Close interaction between
design, manufacturing, and materials engineers is important at this stage.
10. The relationship between the designer and the product does not usually end at the
manufacturing or even delivery stages. The manufacturing engineer may ask the detailed
designer for a change in some parts to make fabrication easier or cheaper. Finally when the
product gets in to use, the reaction of the consumer and the performance of the product in service
are of concern to the designer as the feedback represents an important source of information for
the future design modifications.

DFM Guidelines
DFM guidelines are statements of good design practice that have been empirically derived from
years of experience. 19 Using these guidelines helps narrow the range of possibilities so that the
mass of detail that must be considered is within the capability of the designer.
1. Minimize total number of parts: Eliminating parts results in great savings. A part that is
eliminated costs nothing to make, assemble, move, store, clean, inspect, rework, or service. A
part is a good candidate for elimination if there is no need for relative motion, no need for
subsequent adjustment between parts, and no need for materials to be different. However, part
reduction should not go so far that it adds cost because the remaining parts become too heavy or
complex.
The best way to eliminate parts is to make minimum part count a requirement of the design at
the conceptual stage of design. Combining two or more parts into integral design architecture is
another approach. Plastic parts are particularly well suited for integral design.

2. Standardize components: Costs are minimized and quality is enhanced when standard
commercially available components are used in design. The benefits also occur when a company
standardizes on a minimum number of part designs (sizes, materials, processes) that are
produced internally in its factories. The life and reliability of standard components may have
already been established, so cost reduction comes through quantity discounts, elimination of
design effort, avoidance of equipment and tooling costs, and better inventory control.
3. Use common parts across product lines: It is good business sense to use parts in more than
one product. Specify the same materials, parts, and subassemblies in each product as much as
possible. This provides economies of scale that drive down unit cost and simplify operator
training and process control. Product data management (PDM) systems can be used to facilitate
retrieval of similar designs.
4. Standardize design features. Standardizing on design features like drilled hole sizes, screw
thread types, and bend radii minimizes the number of tools that must be maintained in the tool
room. This reduces manufacturing cost.
5. Aim to keep designs functional and simple: Achieving functionality is paramount, but don’t
specify more performance than is needed. It is not good engineering to specify a heat-treated
alloy steel when plain carbon steel will achieve the performance with a little bit more careful
analysis. When adding features to the design of a component, have a fi rm reason for the need.
The product with the fewest parts, the least intricate shapes, the fewer precision adjustments, and
the lowest number of manufacturing steps will be the least costly to manufacture. Also, the
simplest design will usually be the most reliable and the easiest to maintain.
6. Design parts to be multifunctional: A good way to minimize part count is to design such
that parts can fulfil more than one function, leading to integral architecture. For example, a part
might serve as both a structural member and a spring is to be selected. The part might be
designed to provide a guiding, aligning, or self-fixturing feature in assembly. This rule can
cancel out guideline 5 and break guideline 7 if it is carried too far.
7. Design parts for ease of fabrication: the least costly material that satisfies the functional
requirements should be chosen. It is often the case that materials with higher strength have
poorer workability or fabricability. Thus, one pays more for a higher-strength material, and it
also costs more to process it into the required shape. Since machining to shape tends to be costly,
manufacturing processes that produce the part to near net shape are preferred whenever possible
so as to eliminate or minimize machining. It is important to be able to visualize the steps that a
machine operator will use to make a part so that you can minimize the manufacturing operations
needed to make the part. For example, clamping a part before machining is a time consuming
activity, so design to minimize the number of times the operator will be required to reorient the
part in the machine to complete the machining task. Reclamping also is a major source of
geometric errors.
8. Avoid excessively tight tolerances: Tolerances must be set with great care. Specifying
tolerances that are tighter than needed results in increased cost. These come about from the need
for secondary finishing operations like grinding, honing, and lapping, from the cost of building
extra precision into the tooling, from longer operating cycles because the operator is taking finer
cuts, and from the need for more skilled workers. Before selecting a manufacturing process, be
sure that it is capable of producing the needed tolerance and surface finish. As a designer, it is
important to maintain your credibility with manufacturing concerning tolerances. If in doubt that
a tolerance can be achieved in production, always communicate with manufacturing experts.
Never give a verbal agreement to manufacturing that they can loosen a tolerance without
documentation and making the change on the part drawing. Also, be careful about how the
statement for blanket tolerances on the drawing is worded and might be misinterpreted by
manufacturing.
9. Minimize secondary and finishing operations: Minimize secondary operations such as heat
treatment, machining, and joining and avoid finishing operations such as deburring, painting,
plating, and polishing. Use only when there is a functional reason for doing so. Machine a
surface only when the functionality requires it or if it is needed for aesthetic purposes.
10. Utilize the special characteristics of processes: Be alert to the special design features that
many processes provide. For example, molded polymers can be provided with “built-in” colour,
as opposed to metals that need to be painted or plated. Aluminum extrusions can be made in
intricate cross sections that can then be cut to short lengths to provide parts. Powder-metal parts
can be made with controlled porosity that provides self-lubricating bearings.

Effect of Material Properties on Design

1. Materials are food of design. A successful product is one that performs well, is good value
for money and gives pleasure to the user. A successful design should take in to account the
function, material properties and manufacturing process.
2. This figure shows that there are other secondary relationships between material properties
and manufacturing processes and between function and material properties

3. The relationship between design and material properties is complex because the behavior of
their material in the finished product is quite different from that of stock material used in
making it.
4. This is shown in above figure where direct influence of the stock material properties
production method and component geometry along with external forces on the behavior of
materials in the finished component.
5. It also shows the secondary relationships exist between geometry and production method
and between stick materials and component geometry.

MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS
1. Cost per unit property method
2. Weighted Properties Method
3. Limits on Properties Method

1. Cost per unit property method

 It is natural to use cost as one of the key factors in selection of materials
 Cost is most useful parameter when it can be related to a critical material property that
controls the performance of design
 Finding such cost Vs. performance index will be useful in optimizing the selection
material
 Since material cost is related to weight (or volume) of material, the determination of cost
Vs. property relation becomes a question of determining

In simplest cases of optimizing the selection of materials, one property stands out as the most
critical service requirement. In such simple cases the cost per unit property can use as a criterion
for selecting the optimum material.
Consider the case of a bar of given length (L) to support a tensile force (F). The cross-sectional
area (A) of the bar is given by:

A F
S
Where S is the working stress of the material, which is related to its yield strength by an
appropriate factor of safety.
The cost of the bar is given by:
C′ = CρAL = (CρFL)/S
Where, C = cost of the material per unit mass, and
ρ = Density of the material.
In comparing different candidate materials, only the quantity (Cρ)/S, which is the cost of unit
strength, needs to be compared, as F and L are constant for all material. The material with the
lowest cost per unit strength is the optimum material.
When one material is considered as a substitute for an existing material, the two materials a and
b can be compared on the basis of relative cost per unit strength (RC′):

RC'  (C' )a
(C' )b
2. Weighted Properties Method
 The weighted properties method can be used in optimizing materials selection when several
properties should be taken into consideration.
 In this method each material requirement, or property, is assigned a certain weight,
depending on its importance.
 A weighted property value is obtained by multiplying the numerical value of the property by
the weighting factor (α).
 The individual weighted property values of each material are then summed to give a
comparative materials performance index (γ). The material with the highest performance
index (γ) is considered as the optimum for the application.

Material performance index is given by,

When evaluating a list of candidate materials, one property is considered at a time. The best
value in this list is rated as 100 and the others are scaled proportionally.

B= scaled property = Numerical value of property x 100

Maximum value in the list

For properties like cost, corrosion or wear loss, weight gain in oxidation, etc., a lower value is
more desirable. In such cases, the lowest value is rated as 100 and B is calculated as:

B= scaled property = Minimum value in the list x 100

Numerical value of property

3. Limits on Properties Method

Here performance requirement is divided into 3 categories
1. Lower limit properties
2. Upper limit properties
3. Target value properties
 The limits on properties method are usually suitable for optimizing material and process
selection when numbers of possible alternatives are relatively large. This is because the
limits, which are specified for different properties can be used for eliminating unsuitable
materials from data bank.
 After screening stage, the limits on properties method can be used to optimize the selection
from among remaining materials as in case of weighted properties method
Effect of Manufacturing Process on Design

Introduction
It is now widely recognized that design, materials selection, and manufacturing are intimately
related activities, which cannot be performed in isolation of each other. Creative designs may
never develop in to marketable products unless they can be manufactured economically at the
required level of performance. In many cases, design modifications are made to achieve
production economy or to suit existing production facilities and environment. Modifications of
design may also be made in order to improve quality and performance, in which case the cost of
production may increase.

1. Design Considerations for Cast Components

 Casting covers a wide range of processes which can be used to shape almost any metallic
and some plastics in a variety of shapes, sizes, accuracy, and surface finish.
 In some cases, casting represents the obvious and only way of manufacturing, as in the case
of components made of the different types of cast iron or cast alloys.
 In many other applications, however a decision has to be made whether it as advantageous
to cast a product or to use another method of manufacture. In such cases, the following
factors should be considered:

1. Casting is particularly suited for parts which contain internal cavities that are inaccessible,
too complex, or too large to be easily produced by machining.
2. It is advantageous to cast complex parts when required in large numbers, especially if they
are to be made of aluminum or zinc alloys.
3. Casting techniques can be used to produce a part, which is one of a kind in a variety of
materials, especially when it is not feasible to make it by machining.
4. Precious metals are usually shaped by casting, since there is little or no loss of materials.
5. Parts produced by casting have isotropic properties, which could be important requirements
in some applications.
6. Casting is not competitive when the parts can be produced by punching from sheet or by deep
drawing.
7. Extrusion can be preferable to casting in some cases, especially in the case of lower- melting
nonferrous alloys.
8. Castings are not usually a viable solution when the material is not easily melted, as in the
case of metals with very high melting points such as tungsten.

Guidelines for design

A general rule of solidification is that the shape of the casting should allow the solidification
front to move uniformly from one end toward the feeding end, i.e. directional solidification.
This can most easily be achieved when the casting has virtually uniform thickness in all
sections. In most cases this is not possible. However, when section thickness must change, such
change should be gradual, in order to give rise to stress concentration and possible hot tears in
the casting.
Another problem, which arises in solidification, is caused by sharp corners: these also give rise
to stress concentration and should be replaced by larger radii. When two sections cross or join,
the solidification process is interrupted and a hot spot results. Hot spots retard solidification and
usually cause porosity and shrinkage cavities.
Figure below gives some guidelines to avoid these defects.
2. Design Considerations for Powder Metallurgy Parts

Powder metallurgy (P/M) techniques can be used to produce a large number of small parts to the
final shape in few steps, with little or no machining, and at high rates. Many metallic alloys,
ceramic materials, and particulate reinforced composites can be processed by P/M techniques.
Generally, parts produced by the traditional P/M techniques contain 4 to 10 vol % porosity. The
amount of porosity depends on part shape, type and size of powder, lubrication used, pressing
pressure, sintering temperature and time, and finishing treatments.
The distribution and volume fraction of porosity greatly affect the mechanical, chemical, and
physical properties of parts prepared by P/M techniques. An added advantage of P/M is
versatility. Materials that can be combined in no other way can be produced by P/M.
Aluminum – graphite bearings, copper - graphite electrical brushes, cobalt - tungsten carbide
cutting tools (cermets), and porous bearings and filters are such materials.

Guidelines for design

The Powder Metallurgy Parts Association and Metal Powder Industries Federation have made
certain rules. They are:
1. The shape of the part must permit ejection from the die,

Fig shows Reverse taper should be avoided,

use parallel sides and machine the required taper after sintering.

2. Parts with straight walls are preferred. No draft is required for ejection from lubricated dies.

3. Parts with undercuts or holes at right angles to the direction of pressing cannot be made,

Fig shows undercuts and holes at

right angles to pressing direction
should be avoided; if necessary such
features are introduced by
machining after sintering.

4. Straight serrations can be made easily, but diamond knurls cannot,

Fig shows Diamond knurls should be

replaced by straight serrations.

5. Since pressure is not transmitted uniformly through a deep bed of powder, the
length/diameter ratio of a mechanical pressed part should not exceed about 2.5: 1.
Designs Involving Machining Processes
Guidelines for design
The following discussion illustrates some component shapes and features which can cause
difficulties in machining, take an undue length of time to machine, call for precision and skill
that may not be available, or which may even be impossible to machine by standard machine
tools and cutting tools.
1. The workpiece must have a reference surface, which is suitable for holding it on the machine
tool or in a fixture. This could be a flat base or a cylindrical surface.
2. Whenever possible, the design should allow all the machining operations to be completed
without resetting or reclamping.
3. Whenever possible, the radii between the different machined surfaces should be equal to the
nose radius of the cutting tool.
4. If the part is to be machined by traditional cutting methods, deflection under cutting forces
should be taken into account. For the same cutting force, the deflection is higher for thinner
parts and for lower elastic moduli. Under these conditions, some means of support is necessary
to ensure the accuracy of the machined part.
5. Features at an angle to the main machining direction should be avoided as they may require
special attachments or tooling as shown in Fig below

Fig above (a) Poor design as drill enters and exists at an angle to the surface.
(b) Better design, but drilling the holes needs a special attachment.
(c) Best design.
6. To reduce the cost of machining, machined areas should be minimum as shown in Fig below

Fig above shows. Some design details which can be introduced to reduce machining.
7. Cutting tools often require run-out space, as they cannot be retracted immediately. This is
particularly important in the case of grinding where the edges of the grinding wheel wear out
faster than the centre. Fig below gives some examples to illustrate this point.

Fig above shows, some design details which can be introduced to give run-out for grinding
wheels.