Design for Additive Manufacturing: Towards End-Part Production Web Seminar RePlay

Additive manufacturing (AM), with origins in the 1980s, has only more recently emerged as a manufacturing process of choice for functional part production, adding to the suite of choices a designer has available when designing a part for manufacturing. Like other traditional processes like casting and machining, AM has its set of constraints. An added layer of complexity comes from the fact that there are several different AM processes, and some of the design constraints are process-specific. On the other hand, AM offers a range of opportunities in design freedom and mass customization as well as in cost and lead time reduction in some cases. Today, it is essential for designers to embrace AM as a possible manufacturing method to ensure their products are competitive and also to unlock the design innovation that AM enables.
The goal of this 10-hour course is to give designers the information needed to start designing for AM at all levels – identifying and justifying use of AM technology for a particular part, selecting the right process and material for the application and ensuring it is designed with the advantages and considerations of AM in mind. The course is not intended to serve as a software-training class or as a deep dive into any specific AM process, but rather to draw connections between design and AM from a designer’s perspective.
Objectives
By participating in this course, you’ll be able to:

List the different polymer and metal AM process technologies and materials and identify which of these are being used for functional part production
Select the optimum AM material and process for a particular application
Predict how design decisions impact manufacturability for the selected AM process and apply design rules and guidelines to your design process
Quantify the expected properties of the AM parts you are designing
Discover how topology optimization, cellular structures and other disruptive design techniques can be leveraged with AM and associated software tools
Identify the different drivers for adopting AM for a particular part, with regard to cost, lead time, supply chain and performance risks
Relate to the challenges and ongoing research efforts to be able to move forward with AM implementation in the presence of rapid change in the field
Develop a comprehensive strategy to bring AM for functional part production into your organization that addresses both the benefits and impacts