This presentation was made at CAASE18, The Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering. CAASE18 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues.

Resource Abstract

Contrary to what has been said for many years, Additive Manufacturing (AM) can be predictable! However, it requires appropriate physics and algorithms integrated in a simulation environment that considers the detailed specifics unique to AM. ANSYS has integrated internally developed solutions for the total additive manufacturing workflow with 3DSIM developed tools that can do what no other tool in the world can do. This workshop will provide attendees with an interactive opportunity to see the tools that are available to support AM users and Analysts from development to design to build preparation to fabrication with a particular focus on the benefits of process simulation.
Today’s AM development method of empirical trial and error requires a user to make an initial design and try to build the part in a given orientation with a given support structure and then iteratively make subsequent builds to get the support structure correct. After such iterations the part can be completed and evaluated for distortion or residual stress. If it is found that distortions are excessive or residual stress is causing problems with the part, different orientations may be built and evaluated. Each new orientation requires a different support structure, which can lead to more iterations of support structure development. If this proves to be insufficient to correct the problems then the part must be driven back to the design stage, modified and then the process must be followed again until the part can be fabricated successfully. This can take up to 15 iterations for many components.
Through utilizing process simulation a designer or analyst can have access to the effects of distortion, residual stress, and part orientation, in addition to evaluating required support structure and manufacturing limitations such as blade crashes during the design phase of development. If desired the designer and analyst and can also have access to the effects of varying process parameters. For further evaluation, meltpool dimensions, thermal history, and microstructure can all be evaluated without ever utilizing any physical material or time on an actual machine. Total process simulation gives users a much more wholistic view of the problem all at once instead of requiring a large number of linear iterations to evaluate the problems.
This will be an interactive workshop where attendees and workshop leader will work through the process of designing a part with the assistance of available workflow tools, including performance analysis, design optimization, AM print process simulation, and build setup. Attendees will have the opportunity to see how this workflow happens through the use of case studies as well as live demonstration of the ANSYS and 3DSIM workflow tools with user input and interactive discussion.