Software for Direct Energy Deposition Metal Additive Manufacturing

Simufact, part of Hexagon’s Manufacturing Intelligence division and a global operating software company providing process simulation solutions and services to manufacturing industries, announced a dedicated simulation solution to help manufacturers improve quality for direct energy deposition (DED) metal additive manufacturing processes.

Offered as a module inside its Simufact Welding 2020 software, it enables the user to quickly set up robust DED simulation models by simply importing existing toolpaths direct from G Code instead of defining weld paths manually. The software evaluates the stresses, strains, distortions, thermal history and hot spots during the manufacturing to clearly identify distortions that are out of tolerance, and recommend compensations. Based on this, the user can adapt the G code to optimize the DED printing process and improve quality.

DED incorporates several metal 3D printing technologies that create parts by melting and fusing material as it is deposited, and is also known as 3D laser cladding, wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), direct metal deposition (DMD) or laser metal deposition (LMD). It’s typical fields of application are repairing and rebuilding damaged parts, but also manufacturing of new large metal parts that may not be possible with powder bed fusion.

“We are seeing significant demand for our new simulation solution because it helps to optimize such cost-efficient deposition production processes. DED offers a lot of innovation potential for hybrid manufacturing that combines conventional manufacturing technologies with additive manufacturing.” explained Dr. Hendrik Schafstall, CEO and managing director at Simufact Engineering.