Design for Additive Manufacturing: Opportunities and Challenges

David W. Rosen, Professor

Digital Manufacturing and Design Centre Singapore University of Technology & Design

and

The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology,

david.rosen@me.gatech.edu

ABSTRACT

Broadly speaking, the idea of design for additive manufacturing (DFAM) is to explore new design spaces to take advantage of the unique capabilities of AM processes. With tremendous design freedom available, resulting device designs can be complex geometrically, with complex material and property distributions, that perform multiple functions. At the same time, AM processes perform millions of operations to fabricate a part, which can lead to significant variability challenges. In this talk, I explore the opportunities and challenges surrounding these issues of DFAM. Regarding opportunities, I highlight two directions. First, I present the idea of simultaneous design of a part, its material, and its manufacturing process since these are intimately linked in additive manufacturing. The fundamental need is to integrate materials information, specifically process-structure-property relationships, with CAD models. Second, I highlight the need for methods of robust and reliability design to address process variabilities and enable part qualification. Regarding challenges, several topics are addressed, starting with the rapid changes in the AM industry. Additionally, a core attribute of AM processes is that both the part geometry and part material is fabricated simultaneously, in contrast to conventional manufacturing processes, which is the source of many challenges. The talk concludes with an overview of commercial software offerings to support DFAM, as well as standardization efforts that offer guidance to designers.

David Rosen is a Professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Additionally, he is the Research Director of the Digital Manufacturing and Design Centre at the Singapore University of Technology & Design. He received his Ph.D. at the University of Massachusetts in mechanical engineering. His research interests lie at the intersection of design, manufacturing, and computing with specific focus on additive manufacturing (AM), computer-aided design, and design methodology. He has industry experience, working as a software engineer at Computervision Corp. and a Visiting Research Scientist at Ford Research Laboratories. He is a Fellow of ASME and has served on the ASME Computers and Information in Engineering Division Executive Committee. He is the recipient of the 2013 Solid Freeform Fabrication Symposium, International Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award and the co-author of a leading textbook in the AM field.