Design processes based on human development for additive manufacturing

Additive manufacturing has the potential to impact on the life of everyone through the manufacturing of complex parts in a single process. Additive manufacturing involves building parts layer by layer, rather than cutting away material which happens with conventional manufacturing processes. To fully realise the potential of additive manufacturing new ways of undertaking engineering design need to be developed. The conventional way of educating engineering designers limits the opportunities additive manufacturing offers. The overall aim of this project is to develop new design processes based on human development for additive manufacturing. There are many similarities between human development and additive manufacturing and this project will exploit these similarities to develop new design rules. In the project a study will be undertaken to understand how the medical device industry currently designs implants and determine their uptake of additive manufacturing processes and the barriers to using the technology. The analogy between human development and additive manufacturing will then be investigated to help create a new set of design rules for additive manufacturing. Finally the new design rules will be tested. The main output from this project will be a new set of design rules for additive manufacturing that can be used to produce cost-effective parts.