Near design analyse of structural components for additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) processes still pose challenges for engineers. However, there are a large number of process-related manufacturing restrictions for metallic powder-bed processes. These limitations must be considered by the designer, which requires a high level of process knowledge. With common design programs (CAD) it is not possible to make a decision about the manufacturability of a component. Therefore, a requirements analysis of the needed information was carried out. A total of 15 functions were determined, which are resolved in order to be able to make a qualified statement. This work concerned with the development of an analysis tool, which receives data from CAD software and evaluates the component. A combination of two different discrete data sets (triangle mesh, volume model) is used to analyse the component. Based on these both data sets and the usage of a cost field algorithm, the required information can be calculated to evaluate the component.