Designing of engineering components for optimal materials and manufacturing process utilisation

Choosing the optimal material and manufacturing process combination for a given engineering component application is mostly non-trivial and involves considerable design expertise and experience. This choice is not made in isolation of a lot of other conflicting design issues, technical and non-technical, as well as the need to satisfy interface requirements with adjoining components. This paper describes, through a practical case study, a systematic approach to designing engineering components, with an emphasis on selecting appropriate materials and manufacturing processes. The approach adopted exploits commercially available technologies only, avoiding more exotic materials and processes that may satisfy the technical demands but are inherently risky and prohibitively expensive.