A design, mechanical rating, and load adaptation method for cellular components for additive manufacturing

We present a tool for Design for Additive Manufacturing by internally structuring bulk volumes for lightweight construction. Essential to cost efficient, rapid prototyping is a reliable assessment of mechanical properties without having to build spare samples for testing. Due to its regular nature, our structure allows a beforehand calculation of the mechanical properties like strength and stiffness, even for large geometries with many cells. To improve the mechanical performance of the entire component, the structure of the cells can be adapted in response to a pre-determined load. This adaptation is achieved by locally increasing the diameter of selected struts. Moreover, the mechanical performance of the optimized structure can also be predicted by Finite Element Modeling. The adaptation significantly enhances the load bearing capacity of the product with a low increase in material and production time.