Design for Additive Manufacturing

Background

Additive manufacturing is defined as a material joining process, whereby a product can be directly fabricated from its 3D model, usually layer upon layer. Comparing to traditional manufacturing technologies such as CNC machining or casting, AM processes have several unique capabilities. It enables the fabrication of parts with a complex shape as well as complex material distribution. These unique capabilities significantly enlarge the design freedom for designers. However, they also bring a big challenge. Traditional Design for manufacturing (DFM) rules or guidelines deeply rooted in designers’ mind and severely restrict designers to further improve product functional performance by taking advantages of these unique capabilities brought by AM processes. Moreover, traditional feature-based CAD tools are also difficult to deal with irregular geometry for the improvement of functional performance. To solve these issues, design methods or tools are needed to help designers to take full advantages of design freedom provide by AM processes. These design methods or tools can be categorized as Design for Additive Manufacturing

Topology optimization

Topology optimization is a type of structural optimization techniques which can optimize material layout within a given design space. Compared to other typical structural optimization techniques, such as size optimization or shape optimization, topology optimization can update both shape and topology of a part. However, the complex optimized shapes obtained from topology optimization are always a headache for traditional manufacturing processes such as CNC machining. To solve this issue, additive manufacturing processes can be applied to fabricate topology optimization result. However, it should be noticed, some manufacturing constraints such as minimal feature size also need to be considered during the topology optimization process. Since the topology optimization can help designers to get an optimal complex geometry for additive manufacturing, this technique can be considered one of DFAM methods.

Multiscale structure design

Due to the unique capabilities of AM processes, parts with multiscale complexities can be realized. This provides a great design freedom for designers to use cellular structures or lattice structures on micro or mesoscales for the preferred properties. For example, in the aerospace field, lattice structures fabricated by AM process can be used for weight reduction. In the bio-medical field, bio-implant made of lattice or cellular structures can enhance osseointegration.

Multi-material design

Parts with multi-material or complex material distribution can be achieved by additive manufacturing processes. To help designers to take use of this advantages, several design and simulation methods has been proposed to support design a part with multiple materials or Functionally Graded Materials . These design methods also bring a challenge to traditional CAD system. Most of them can only deal with homogeneous materials now.

Design for mass customization

Since additive manufacturing can directly fabricate parts from products’ digital model, it significantly reduces the cost and leading time of producing customized products. Thus, how to rapidly generate customized parts becomes a central issue for mass customization. Several design methods have been proposed to help designers or users to obtain the customized product in an easy way. These methods or tools can also be considered as the DFAM methods.

Parts consolidation

Due to the constraints of traditional manufacturing methods, some complex components are usually separated into several parts for the ease of manufacturing as well as assembly. This situation has been changed by the using of additive manufacturing technologies. Some case studies have been done to shows some parts in the original design can be consolidated into one complex part and fabricated by additive manufacturing processes. This redesign process can be called as parts consolidation. The research shows parts consolidation will not only reduce part count, it can also improve the product functional performance. The design methods which can guide designers to do part consolidation can also be regarded as a type of DFAM methods.