A multi-material additive manufacturing virtual prototyping method for design to improve part strength

Multi-material additive manufacturing (MMAM) offers new opportunities to realize components with more integrated features and functionalities in reduced manufacturing costs by eliminating assembly processes. However, the weak mechanical bond between different materials often results in unexpected weakness sections that reside around the multi-material boundary interface. Thus, strengthening the boundary interface is critical to enabling the wide application of MMAM processes in production. Our work approaches this challenge by introducing a new virtual prototyping method to strengthen MMAM parts by facilitating the design and planning process. In our work, a computational part strength prediction model is built, and this model is used to quickly and realistically predict the mechanical strength of a part design within the context of its manufacturing plan. This enables fast iteration of redesigns to create parts that can be directly printed with improved strength. Compared to the commonly used design of experiment-based approaches, this new virtual prototyping method offers a more time and cost-efficient solution that delivers better designs in a shorter design cycle and with no material wastage by eliminating the need for physical test printing.