DESARROLLO DE UN MÉTODO PARA SELECCIONAR LA TECNOLOGÍA ÓPTIMA EN FABRICACIÓN ADITIVA DE METALES MEDIANTE UN PROCESO ANALÍTICO JERÁRQUICO (AHP)

Additive manufacturing has experienced a remarkable growth in recent years thanks, among other things, to the wide range of technologies, materials and equipment that can be used. Given the complexity of selecting a technology and considering as a starting hypothesis that there is no universally applicable technology that is optimal for all materials, sizes and shapes, a method based on multi-criteria selection has been developed that aims to select the best alternative for the additive manufacturing of metal parts. Using the analytical hierarchical process (AHP), different technologies (alternatives) have been analysed and compared and the criteria (those characteristics and/or attributes that identify each alternative) have been defined. The importance of each criterion analysed in the hierarchy matrix was determined based on expert surveys. The innovation of this work is that a pre-selection criterion excluding alternatives has been considered in order to select the optimum technology oriented to the specific application, being able to define the part in more detail in terms of shape, material and size. Finally, the application of the AHP method identifies the highest scoring alternatives, providing a useful selection tool for users.