Abstract:
A decision-making methodology for the material selection is presented in this
paper. A multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) based hybrid approach, AHP-TOPSIS,
was used to choose the appropriate additive manufacturing (AM) material for aerospace
applications. This study evaluated nine polymer-based AM materials for an aerospace
application. Experts from both industry and academia carefully finalized the selection
criteria by using Delphi technique. Selected criteria are divided into three main categories:
performance, economic and environmental. Firstly, the AHP approach was used to get the
weights of criteria chosen via pairwise comparisons. Second, a decision matrix containing
the properties of materials was created. The TOPSIS method was then applied using the
AHP criteria weights and decision matrix, resulting in the final ranking of materials.
ULTEM material ranked number 1 and was selected as the appropriate material for an
aerospace application. Additionally, sensitivity analysis was also carried out to check the
proposed method's reliability and robustness.
