Page 16 - 3D Metal Printing Winter 2020

3D FEATURE
Software Innovations
Gain Momentum
New software offerings foster the continued industrialization of metal 3D printing.
BY JOE JANCSURAK, ASSOCIATE EDITOR
When it comes to metal 3D printing advance- ments, hardware captures many of the head- lines. Software advancements, however, cer- tainly don’t lag as an accelerated flow of new offerings drive metal 3D printing forward. Presented here are some of the latest.
Streamlining Design Optimization
Apex Generative Design, from MSC Software Corp., stream- lines the design process by requiring that the designer specify only the boundary conditions and design objective. The offering then provides multiple lightweight design candidates that explore the possibilities of the design space, providing optimal stress distribution and minimized weight. As a result, designers have more time to optimise the product’s concept and integrate addi- tional features that add value. The software’s intelligent smoothing technology ensures ready-to-print finishes.
“New design freedoms in AM require a new generation of software solutions that take full advantage of the new design for AM possibilities,” says Dr. Thomas Reiher, director of Generative Design.
“We make the generative design process smarter by producing design candidates that both satisfy the engineering criteria and look as the designer intended when 3D printed.”
Fully integrated, designers can find optimized design candi- dates and perform design validation within the same computer aided engineering (CAE) environment, thus simplifying the work process and reducing design iterations. The result: an automated optimization process in which compatibility for previous and subsequent operations plays a vital role. This capability enables the conversion from the CAE mesh to computer-aided design with no manual reconstruction of geometry, considerably sim- plifying the work process for designers.
“Additive manufacturing promises innovation and manufac- turing productivity advances,” says Hugues Jeancolas, vice pres- ident of product management at MSC. “However, to truly trans-
From Formula Student, an annual UK student-engineering competition,
comes this generative design of a wheel carrier for race cars.
form, the new technolo- gies require automated design workflows with embedded process knowledge. We are inte- grating our structural analysis, design optimiza- tion and manufacturing sim- ulation solutions to optimize and validate designs for additive
processes before a single part is printed.”
MSC Software Corp.:
www.mscsoftware.com/product/msc-apex-generative-design
Fully Integrated AM Workflow
Link3D, in cooperation with Autodesk, Inc., has introduced fully integrated additive manufacturing (AM) workflow using linked Autodesk software to enable end-to-end traceability.
Autodesk Fusion 360 and Netfabb users can associatively queue manufacturing-ready CAD models in Link3D’s production
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3DMPmag.com
scheduler, including attached information such as support structures or CNC tool path data.
Link3D users with subscriptions to Autodesk software can