Design Rules for Additive Manufacturing: A Categorization

Abstract

Additive manufacturing (AM) is gaining popularity in industrial applications including new product development, functional parts, and tooling. However, due to the differences in AM technologies, processes, and process implementations, functional and geometrical characteristics of manufactured parts can vary dramatically. Planning, especially selecting the appropriate AM process and material requirements can be rather involved. Manufacturability using AM processes has been well studied; however, gaps exist in the design process when catering to the needs of manufacturability. Designers today are challenged with a lack of understanding of AM capabilities, process-related constraints, and their effects on the final product. Challenges are compounded by the ambiguity of where design for AM ends and process planning begins. These ambiguities can be addressed through design principles and corresponding design rules for additively manufacturing parts. The purpose of this paper is to categorically present relevant and reported efforts in design and process planning with design rules in AM. The overarching goal of the review is to offer insights to extract and categorize fundamental principles for derivative rules for different AM processes. Identifying such fundamental requirements could potentially lead to breakthroughs in design and process planning.