Enhancing design for additive manufacturing education through a performance-based design challenge

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Additive manufacturing (AM) enables the production of very complex part geometries. Nevertheless, there are process limitations that must be considered during the design phase. One barrier to the industrial adoption of AM is the insufficient knowledge of Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM). This knowledge transfer is challenging since it is not sufficient to acquire theoretical knowledge about AM processes and their given restrictions to design manufacturable and economically viable parts. The design process should be experienced to gain the necessary knowledge for future projects and the implementation of the technology.Several project-based lectures have been presented in the literature offering participants the opportunity to choose a design task, develop an AM part, and gain hands-on experience. However, it is difficult to find appropriate design tasks and identify applications where AM offers potential and allows for the necessary learning experiences. Therefore, defined design tasks are necessary to enable these learning experiences.This contribution presents the performance-based design challenge of designing a manometer for PBF-LB/M. After presenting the framework of the implementation in the “Design for Additive Manufacturing” lecture at ETH Zurich, the resulting designs of seven student groups are presented and four specific cases are discussed. The cases demonstrate what is relevant when designing for AM and which approaches are beneficial for a successful design. In addition, the cases demonstrate which learnings are generated while experiencing design for metal AM in a hands-on project. Finally, the transfer of this performance-based design challenge to continuing education courses is discussed.