During the course of the CORNET project, “AM 4 Industry”, Belgian SIRIS published a comprehensive e-book that helps readers design for additive manufacturing.
Additive manufacturing (AM), colloquially known as 3-D printing, offers many advantages that cannot be achieved through conventional forming and subtractive-based production methods. AM processes follow a digital 3-D model to create complex internal structures layer by layer to realise new product functions such as individualised or lightweight objects. However, many CAD designers are stuck in the paradigms of conventional production methods and struggle to exploit the potential of additive manufacturing.
“Many engineers were trained to design for classical production processes. But additive manufacturing allows much more freedom and requires a new way of thinking that often contradicts classical design approaches”, says ecoplus project manager Benjamin Losert.
To support other engineers in the transition, Simon Vermeir, AM design engineer at SIRIS, developed a comprehensive practical methodology and published it in an e-book. The book can be obtained free of charge and accompanies interested parties through the six phases: specification, brainstorming, concept reflection and selection, concept optimisation, detail design and reflection of the requirements. Based on these steps, the methodology is explained practically to help designers develop a new way of thinking and to exploit the potential of layer-based production methods better.
SIRIS is a Belgian collective centre for and by the technological industry and a research partner in the CORNET project, “AM 4 Industry”. This research project was led by ecoplus Plastics and Mechatronics Clusters in Lower Austria and, for two years, studied the successful industrial application of additive manufacturing processes.
A summary of the project results, as well as the e-book, can be downloaded free of charge from the research network website:
www.am4industry.com.
ecoplus. Lower Austria Business Agency GmbH
Niederösterreich-Ring 2, House A, 3100 St. Pölten
Email: b.losert@ecoplus.at, Phone: +43 2742 9000-19669
The technopoly programme strengthens technology-oriented location development, particularly for educational and research institutions. Furthermore, the Business Agency of Lower Austria provides access to regional subsidies and supports innovative cooperative projects in the ecoplus cluster’s competitiveness initiatives. Moreover, Lower Austrian companies can count on support for internationalisation and export.
The project was financially supported by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG in the course of a CORNET (COllective Research NETworking).
ecoplus is a committed member of the technology platform AM-Austria: www.am-austria.com.
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