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Nowadays, due to rapid prototyping process improvements, a functional part can be built directly through additive manufacturing. It is now accepted that these new processes can increase productivity while enabling a mass and cost reduction and an increase in the parts functionality. However, in order to achieve this, new design methods have to be developed to take into account the specificities of these processes, with the Design For Additive Manufacturing (DFAM) concept. In this context, a methodology to obtain a suitable design of parts built through additive manufacturing is proposed; both design requirements and manufacturing constraints are taken into account.Recent progress has permitted the transition from Rapid Prototyping to Additive Manufacturing (AM). Indeed, today, with this kind of manufacturing process, not only can prototypes be produced but also real functional parts in current materials, including metals, polymers, and ceramics 1. Because AM for production eliminates the need for tooling and can generate free forms, many of the current restrictions of design for manufacturing and assembly are no longer valid 2. However, whatever the technology used 3, as in all the manufacturing processes, the AM ones have characteristics and specificities of their own, which may have an impact on the quality of manufactured parts. In order to utilize the AM possibilities in the best way in terms of design and to ensure the quality of the produced parts, a global numerical chain that allows moving from functional specifications of a part to its manufacturing must be defined (Figure 11.1). The purpose of this numerical chain 4 is to reach a global process control from knowledge of the process obtained from experimentations, measurements, and simulations. Among the prerequisites to achieving such a numerical chain, a Design For Manufacturing (DFM) 5 approach is required, which allows taking into account the AM processes’ capabilities and limits directly from the design stage.
Ponche et al. (Fri,) studied this question.