Design for Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM), also known as 3D printing, is a revolutionary technology because of new opportunities in the design and manufacturing process. AM provides great freedom in the design of complex shape products with a wide range of materials that cannot be easily manufactured by other fabrication methods.

Many engineers and researchers need a clear understanding of techniques and tools that support product design for additive manufacturing processes. This is a way to maximize the product performance by choosing the right size, shape, structure, and material compositions, subject to the capabilities of AM technologies.

This course will provide the necessary knowledge and skills for the design of AM products using advanced digital design tools. Designers will learn the technical fundamentals, industrial applications, design strategies, and benefits and drawbacks of AM technologies.

3D printing: DFAM with advanced digital design tools

After this training course, you will be able to:

• Understand and explain the principal additive manufacturing processes, the fundamental mechanism of operation, and applications
• Identify the entire product life cycle from design conception to the final product in the additive manufacturing process.
• Understand, explain and use design strategies and rules for metal and polymer additive manufacturing processes
• Identify the design constraints in additive manufacturing and post-processing consideration
• Employ qualitative and quantitative simulation tools in the design of additive manufactured parts.
• Explore current and future perspectives on digital design tools for additive manufacturing

Intended for

Designers, manufacturing engineers, lab technicians, researchers and everyone who is working in the field of additive manufacturing.

Course Leader
Ian Gibson is Professor of Design Engineering in the department of design, production and management at the University of Twente (UT). He is also Scientific director of the Fraunhofer Project Centre at UT. He has been active in Additive Manufacturing since the very early days in the 1990s where he was involved in acquiring the third machine ever to be implemented in the UK (a 3D Systems Stereolithography machine SLA250). He has kept a keen eye on the development of the technology every since, starting the first ever academic journal on the topic (Rapid Prototyping Journal, established in 1997) and co-authoring the most popular text (Additive Manufacturing Technologies, by Springer), which has seen over 6 million downloads across its 3 editions. He is currently researching into next generation AM technology and how industry can advance through its use.

Interested in related courses? Take a look at our course Non-linear finite element methods: theory and application and the course Material selection in structural design.