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An Empirical Study Linking Additive Manufacturing Design Process to Success in Manufacturability
This paper characterizes engineering designers’ abilities to re-design a component for
additive manufacturing, employing screen capture methods. Additive Manufacturing has garnered
significant interest from a wide range of industries, academia and government stakeholders due to
its potential to reform and disrupt traditional manufacturing processes. The technology offers
unprecedented design freedom and customization along with its ability to process novel and high
strength alloys in promising lead times. To harness the maximum potential of this technology,
designers are often tasked with creating new products or re-design existing portfolios of
traditionally manufactured parts to achieve lightweight designs with better performance. To date,
few studies explore the correspondence between design behaviors and manufacturability of final
product within an Additive Manufacturing context. This paper presents empirical data from the
design processes of six graduate student engineering designers as they re-design a traditionally
designed part for additive manufacturing. Behaviors through the design task are compared between
the study participants with a quantitative measure of the manufacturability and quality of each
design. Results indicate opportunities for further research and best practices in design for Additive
manufacturing and engineering education practitioners across multiple disciplines.Mechanical Engineerin