Combining Additive and Conventional Manufacturing

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Lightweight, organically-shaped products can be designed using topology optimization. Siemens’ NX software allows designers and engineers to create and optimize a new generation of product designs. | Download

Siemens has integrated additive manufacturing into its NX software suite for product development. Unlike conventional manufacturing techniques, 3D printing imposes few limitations on product design, thus opening the door to production of individualized products for mass markets.

However, there are still obstacles to integrating conventional and additive manufacturing techniques. 3D printing uses completely different design techniques than conventional manufacturing and generates totally different data formats. As a result of the digital transformation of the economy, industry is now using end-to-end software tools for all stages of the product development process and seamlessly documenting all of a product’s relevant data. In order to integrate additively manufactured parts into these systems, developers need to laboriously convert data formats or update product information. Siemens has now developed software that closes this gap.

Rethinking Lightweight Engineering
Unlike traditional manufacturing techniques such as milling, spraying, stamping and casting, 3D printing enables products to have any shape. As a result, it’s possible to create innovative lightweight components that have cavities or honeycomb structures. This makes 3D printing very interesting for the automotive and aerospace industries in particular. Many 3D printing techniques are now about as precise as conventional manufacturing methods and have overcome obstacles to their use in industrial production.

End-to-End Data Formats
One of the challenges that had to be met in order to integrate 3D printing into industrial production processes is the completely different way in which it enables products to be designed. Conventional CAD techniques are oriented toward individual manufacturing methods and generate precisely defined geometries. By contrast, 3D printing design often uses faceted data that combines polyhedrons to create objects of any shape. However, 3D printing’s design freedom is offset by a lower level of precision compared to traditional techniques.

In response, Siemens has developed a completely new system called Convergent Modeling that brings these two worlds together in a single software solution. Because Convergent Modeling is now a part of NX, product developers can use their familiar CAD program to design products for 3D printers without having to convert the data. The new system ensures that all product-relevant information can be seamlessly traced.

Radically New Design Possibilities
Convergent Modeling enables designers to exploit the possibilities of 3D printing in completely new ways. Using a method that experts call “generative design,” developers can consistently design products in line with requirements and without any manufacturing-related restrictions. In the case of a connection piece, for example, the requirements include the available space, the connection points to other components, and the forces that act on it. Since the introduction of its most recent version (11.0.1.), NX offers special programs known as topology optimizers that automatically calculate the best geometry for a particular product function on the basis of its requirements. This approach creates products that are much lighter than their traditionally manufactured counterparts, but just as strong. Furthermore, it enables printed parts to be worked on with conventional manufacturing methods. As a result, it’s possible to make the rougher geometry of a 3D printing design more precise in order to create CAD-quality drill holes, for example. The new system also makes it easier to work with scanned geometries. Designers are already integrating 3D scans of certain elements into the design process. Convergent Modeling also enables multiple data models to be seamlessly integrated, making it perfectly suited for 3D printing.

Important Industrial Partnerships
Convergent Modeling is furthering the integration of additive manufacturing into industrial processes. In cooperation with one of the world’s largest machine tool manufacturers, Trumpf, Siemens has equipped a laser metal fusion facility with an NX workstation. The result is a 3D printer that can be directly controlled through NX, i.e. from a CAD-CAE-CAM environment. Siemens has formed a partnership with the 3D printing specialist Stratasys that will make it possible to directly operate a variety of Stratasys printers using NX.

Contact:
Sebastian Webel
Editorial Office
Siemens AG
sebastian.webel@siemens.com

Original Internet Article:
https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-future/industry-and-automation/additive-manufacturing-software-for-combined-additive-and-conventional-manufacturing.html

Pictures of the Future
https://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/home/pictures-of-the-future.html