Wohlers Associates and Materialise offer Design for Additive Manufacturing course
April 24, 2017
Wohlers Associates, Inc., Fort Collins, Colorado, USA, has announced a three-day course on Design for Additive Manufacturing. The course, run in collaboration with Materialise, will take place from May 31–June 2, 2017, at Materialise’s headquarters in Leuven, Belgium.
“We are very happy to collaborate with Materialise, a company with an outstanding reputation and extraordinary track record,” stated Terry Wohlers, Principal Consultant and President of Wohlers Associates. “Designers, engineers and managers wanting to learn how to design products for AM will benefit from more than 55 years of combined company experience at Materialise and Wohlers Associates.”
A metal part produced using Additive Manufacturing (Courtesy Airbus)
The course will offer instruction on the methods of designing specifically for Additive Manufacturing, such as the consolidation of many parts into a few. This can result in significant savings in manufacturing processes, part numbers, assembly, labour, inventory and certification paperwork. The course will also cover topology optimisation; a technique which uses mathematics to optimise material placement for strength-to-weight ratio and can reduce material use and weight by up to 60%, while preserving strength.
Participants will gain valuable hands-on experience by designing parts using CAD and special software tools for Additive Manufacturing. Some of the designs will be built on industrial AM equipment at Materialise so that attendees can evaluate the results. 3D scanning for custom product development will also be included as an exercise.
Associate consultant Olaf Diegel, PhD, will serve as the lead instructor, drawing on a combination of experience gained with both conventional design and manufacturing as well as designing for Additive Manufacturing. “Olaf has created more than 80 commercial products and is an engaging instructor, making him ideal for the course,” Wohlers stated.
