Wohlers Associates announces Advanced Design for Additive Manufacturing course
July 28, 2022
Wohlers Associates, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, part of ASTM International, has partnered with America Makes, headquartered in Youngstown, Ohio, to offer an Advanced Design for Additive Manufacturing course from September 28-30, 2022, in Youngstown. This course is designed to provide foundational information, special methods & approaches to design, and hands-on practice.
Topics covered in this three-day course include consolidating many parts into one, topology optimisation, and lattice/mesh structures. The course includes considerations for metal, polymer, and composite materials; the creation of custom parts and reducing the need for time-consuming and expensive support material. Presentations and hands-on exercises cover these and many other topics.
The course presents best practices and includes Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM) guidelines that have been created over many years. Included are design rules and guiding principles for most Additive Manufacturing processes and materials, with an emphasis on building quality, functional parts (examples include minimum wall thicknesses, smallest diameters for pins and holes, the building of screw threads, clearances for moving parts, and overhanging features).
Participants experienced with CAD can use any design software for the course, and will gain hands-on experience, although CAD familiarity is not mandatory. A panel of DfAM experts will answer detailed questions and provide additional information and perspective.
At the conclusion of the course, participants are anticipated to be able to:
- Describe when, why, and how to use Additive Manufacturing
- Apply CAD data to part production workflows for Additive Manufacturing
- Discuss the economics of Additive Manufacturing and the design factors that can influence part cost
- Identify what causes residual stress in a part and how to counteract it through design
- Simulate the Additive Manufacturing build process to locate and correct areas of potential failure
- Design for Additive Manufacturing using guidelines for metal and polymer Powder Bed Fusion (PBF), Material Extrusion (MEX), Binder Jetting (BJT), and Vat Photopolymerisation
- Reduce material and weight using support material and topology optimisation and lattice-structure software
- Consolidate many parts into one to reduce part numbers, manufacturing processes, inventory, labour, certification paperwork, post-processing, and maintenance
- Use Additive Manufacturing to produce more efficient or less expensive tooling
- Gain insight into the future of Additive Manufacturing applications, systems, and trends
The full agenda of the course is available via pdf. Registration is open here.
