Design Rules

Additive manufacturing (AM) offers expansive design freedoms for realizing parts that are more complex and customized than their conventionally fabricated counterparts, but all AM technologies impose restrictions on buildable geometries and features. Design rules capture those restrictions in the form of best practices to successfully design for AM. This article discusses how design rules can potentially support and accelerate the process of developing part geometry for AM. The discussion provides examples of design rules that are independent of any specific AM process and then discusses design rules specific to particular AM processes.