“As humans, we have been carving stuff out of rock and wood for centuries. We’re really good at it.” That’s according to John Barnes, founder and managing director of The Barnes Group Advisors, which is the largest independent additive manufacturing engineering consultancy. Barnes, a mechanical engineer by training, spent more than 20 years designing aerospace parts the traditional way. But as he told attendees at LiveWorx 19, times and technology have changed.
Rather than being about molding or shaping a material, “additive [manufacturing] is a layer-by-layer technology,” Barnes says. And it’s revolutionizing the way engineers think about how they design. In fact, it’s creating a new paradigm: DfAM or design for additive manufacturing.
As the additive manufacturing landscape evolves, companies would be smart to stay abreast of the latest developments in DfAM. Barnes’ team shows why it matters:
They analyzed the costs of a hypothetical part that would be produced via powder bed fusion. They found that 86% of the cost of the part was driven by design. While only 14% of the cost was determined by the materials used to print it. Some AM materials sound expensive on the front end, but Barnes argues in the video below that the major efficiencies come from design decisions.
Imagine how much you would shave off costs if you could reduce post processing with your design. Or optimize the layout of your print tray to produce more parts, faster.
Who says the way you’ve always made a part is the way it must be done? DfAM opens up a world of possibilities to design engineers.
Want to learn more about DfAM so you can make the case for why your team should be doing more with additive? You can view Barnes’s complete presentation in the LiveWorx archive, along with videos and slides from the rest of last year’s LiveWorx lineup.