How to Choose the Best Additive Manufacturing Technology for Your Application

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Many analysts predict that 2017 will be the year where the hype around 3D printing fades away and becomes a realistic and commercially viable way of manufacturing more than just prototypes.

The biggest challenge for this is understanding how the many different additive processes work and how to design specifically for it. Simply 3D printing an existing design that has been optimized for a traditional manufacturing method will almost certainly be more expensive. But how do you go about choosing from the many different technologies available?

To help you answer that question and learn more about the current options, we have launched a new mini site focused on additive manufacturing. Check out https://www.solidworks.com/am today. This area will evolve with more webinars, videos, design guides, customer stories and blogs to keep you fully up to date with this very fast-moving technology. There will also be tips and tricks you can use in SOLIDWORKS to allow you to change your manufacturing process without changing CAD systems.

You can expect some very exciting things to help progress designs in this area as well. At SOLIDWORKS World 2017 we announced a partnership with nTopology for lightweight microstructures and generative design capabilities from our sister brand Simulia’s Tosca, which will be integrated into SOLIDWORKS.

SOLIDWORKS will be presenting at the Science in the Age of Experience event taking place May 15-18 in Chicago. There will be a Design Hackathon specifically for Additive Manufacturing where attendees can use SOLIDWORKS to design a product specifically for 3D printing.

Mark Rushton

Mark Rushton is a Product Portfolio Manager for SOLIDWORKS and has been involved with 3D CAD and 3D Printing for over 15 years in several capacities from research to consulting for the likes of Rolls Royce, GE, JCB and Dyson. When not playing with 3D printers or other tech, he is most likely out snowboarding, wake boarding or mountain biking.