On September 11th – 13th 2019 the bi-annual conference on Simulation for Additive Manufacturing (SIM-AM) was held on the historic university of Pavia in Italy.
The conference is an international gathering of researchers discussing the latest advances on simulations for the entire spectrum of Additive Manufacturing Techniques. Topics range from micro-structure modeling of metal printed products, to topology and shape optimization technique, from powder bed fusion process simulation to new trends in 4D printing and everything in between.
Novel AM process simulation framework
PhD candidate Jeroen Knippenberg presented the innovative work done by the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) on the development of a novel AM process simulation framework. In this framework the continuous material addition is simulated with a state of the art element addition technique. This element addition is combined with a thermomechanical model to simulate the thermal material deposition. Jeroen showed how this framework can be used to calculate, internal stresses, deformations and temperature distribution during printing of a product with GCode as simulation input. In conclusion, the use of this simulation framework in the Hybrid AM context was discussed.
Wide range of international presenters
Furthermore, other interesting contributions were given by researchers from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands), McGill University (Canada), NIST Institute of Standards and technology (India), RWTH Aachen University (Germany) and Northwestern University (USA), among many others. Both academia and industry were well presented in this multi day international conference.
Overall it was a very interesting conference in which state-of-the-art research and simulation work on many aspects of AM where presented and discussed lively. The international audience consisted of the leading experts in the field from all over the world.