Essais & Simulations n°140

DOSSIER
SPÉCIAL JEC WORLD
INTERVIEW
“There is a lack of standard operating procedures
and methods for printing parts”
Brent Stucker, Ph.D. is Director of Additive Manufacturing (AM) at Ansys, one of the world leaders
in numerical simulation, explains how additive manufacturing has been growing for several years
and how the company is adapting to the demands of manufacturers through innovative solutions.
Enhancement part
Brent Stucker,
Ph.D. is Director of Additive
Manufacturing (AM) at Ansys
WHAT CHALLENGES DO THEY FACE IN THIS FIELD?
WHAT DO 3D PRINTING AND ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING
REPRESENT TODAY IN ANSYS' ACTIVITIES AND AT YOUR
INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMERS' SITES?
Ansys offers a comprehensive software suite that spans the entire
range of physics, providing access to virtually any field of engineering
simulation that a design process requires. Through our strategy
of Pervasive Engineering Simulation, we help the world's most
innovative companies deliver radically better products to their
customers, whether it be in Aerospace, Autonomous solutions,
Healthcare, heavy Industry, Oil and Gas, automotive etc.
All of these industries are moving towards Advanced Manufacturing
solutions to meet today’s needs and hence Ansys also has
invested heavily in providing our customers with solutions in
the Additive Manufacturing space. From our major enterprise
customers to startup companies, everyone is using Additive Manufacturing
for a variety of end-use applications, whether it is for
design freedom, short run production or performance enhancements.
One of the big challenges most of our customers face in Additive
Manufacturing is a lack of trained experts. It is an expensive
process and since it is a relatively new technology, there is a lack
of standard operating procedures and methods for printing parts,
especially for Metal AM. Additive Manufacturing involves more
than just pressing the ‘print’ button. Successful Additive Manufacturing
requires designs which take advantage of Additive Manufacturing’s
benefits, effective use of supports, specialized material
science knowledge, process parameter optimization, and more. It
is a much more agile method of manufacturing involving everyone
from designers, machine operators, material scientists to qualification
and certification engineers. Ansys software can help manage
this complexity and provide insight to avoid build failures and
achieve successful production.
WHAT SOLUTIONS DO YOU OFFER THEM?
The Ansys Additive Solutions are tailored to exactly solve the above
challenges. We have created an end to end solution which goes from
Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), Build File Preparation,
AM Process Simulation, Material Analysis, all the way to part
qualification and certification. This allows various user personas to
work in a similar environment and allows companies to perform
all the Additive Manufacturing related tasks in one software suite,
instead of switching between various tools.
For instance, our build preparation tools allow users to create the
build files and send them directly to the printer, after our Additive
Process simulation tools make sure you have a first time right
build. Our Granta suite of Additive tools allow users to access large
56 IESSAIS & SIMULATIONS • N°140 • février - mars 2020