'The University of Texas at Austin, Bureau of Economic Geology'
Abstract
Three dimensional free-form geometric shapes can be built by putting layers upon layer in a
predefined direction via Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes. The fabrication processes
require computational as well as physical resources and can vary not only upon the product but its
process plan. Overly simplified process plan may expedite the pre-fabrication techniques, but may
create difficulty during fabrication of those slices. For an example, slices with concavity or discrete
contour plurality may introduce deposition discontinuity, over deposition, and higher build time
during the fabrication. These issues demand more resources there by affecting the part quality and
fabrication cost. In this work, we focus upon the build direction of AM process plan to address the
fabrication and resource utilization. First, a set of uniform build direction is identified and the
object is discretized using a set of critical points considering the object concavity along the build
direction. Cutting planes are generated and the object is discretized into strips and each strip is
analyzed for contour plurality and the build directions are quantified through the allocation of
importance factors. The optimal build direction thus found will result in lowest possible fabrication
complexity. The proposed methodology is implemented and presented with a sample example in
this paper.Mechanical Engineerin
