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There’s a lot of confusion around what the terms additive manufacturing and 3D printing mean.

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Additive manufacturing, often referred to as 3D printing, is a computer-controlled process for creating 3D objects.

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Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a science that uses data structures to solve issues of fluid flow -- like velocity, density, and chemical compositions. 

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IN THIS ARTICLE: 

• What is Finite Element Analysis
• Principles of FEA
• A General Process in FEA
• Type of Finite Element Method
• Application of FEA in CAD
• Why FEA is Useful
• The Bottom Line

Engineers have the unenviable position of being held entirely responsible for the integrity and safety of all the products and structures they design. Small mistakes in design often lead to imminent disasters (that frequently go to court and get litigated). 

This is why products and structures go through an array of stress testing and optimization before being deployed in the real world. But doing so over hundreds of iterations (and to scale) can be prohibitively expensive. So engineers often look to simulation modeling techniques (like Finite Element Analysis) to automate and simplify this testing.

This helps to reduce the use of materials for iterative prototyping, which would otherwise be used in actualization. 

Finite element analysis is one of the most common techniques used by engineers and CAD designers to simulate “stress” on their designs. 

Tags: 3D Modeling Additive Manufacturing 3D Interoperability Manufacturing & Fabrication 3D Data

As manufacturers begin to rely more and more on additive manufacturing (AM), moving from a few select piece parts that are 3D printed, to hundreds of assemblies in complex systems, a cohesive methodology is needed to manage this transition and associated workflows. Companies have tried to deal with these complexities and challenges with point and home-grown solutions, trying to adapt legacy systems to the new reality.

Tags: 3D Modeling Additive Manufacturing 3D Interoperability 3D Data

To the uninitiated, 3D printing may seem a simple process — download your CAD file and hit print. But the world of additive manufacturing is more complex. A manufacturer will have to contend with a range of data formats of varying quality (especially if a manufacturer is having to deal with multiple subcontractors for an assembly). This data needs to be correctly translated, made watertight, and made manufacturable — all while retaining design intent. Then a manufacturer needs to combine as many parts as possible to minimize both print time as well as wasted material.

Tags: 3D InterOp 3D Modeling Additive Manufacturing 3D Interoperability Manufacturing & Fabrication 3D Data

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Tags: Additive Manufacturing 3D Visualization

Tags: Additive Manufacturing Manufacturing & Fabrication