Innovative software for designing additively manufacturable fluid flow components

The emergence of 3D printing, industrially termed additive manufacturing (AM) is disrupting how components are manufactured. AM has the capability to manufacture increasingly complex designs for a multitude of cross-sectoral technologies. For example, aerospace where new components can be realised with significantly reduced material consumption and scrap. Current subtractive methods can often result in up to 95% of the raw material being turned into scrap metal in the form of chips and swarf. Traditional manufacturing methods can also lead to over-engineered components due to limitations in design freedoms.

Gen3D's vision of design for additive manufacture (DfAM) is predicated on maintaining in equal balance the connection between the often-disparate aspects of 'design' and 'manufacture'. This vision is realised through the unique Gen3D software platform. This software can generate or modify geometry using optimisation algorithms that are constrained by a series of proprietary manufacturing filters. Only manufacturable geometry can be created. A user only needs to describe the function of the part or provide an already existing geometry for the software to return a manufacturable design output. Furthermore, the software is not limited to a single AM process and can be applied to a multitude of AM technologies including powder bed fusion, stereolithography, and fused deposition modelling.

This ambitious and disruptive project will develop new design rules, algorithms and software features that will be embedded within Gen3Ds unique software. This will enable and accelerate the right-first-time DfAM of fluid flow components, such as hydraulic actuators and heat exchangers.It will transform how complex fluid flow components are realised using a new design environment (akin to a digital 'whiteboard') in which the designer can flexibly and quickly alter and adapt designs whilst simultaneously adhering to core manufacturability rules. This will, for the first time, ensure that designs are functionally optimally, significantly light-weighted and manufacturable in a single design iteration fundamentally changing the way engineers design.