Automated Knowledge-Based Design for Additive Manufacturing: A Case Study with Flow Manifolds

Additive manufacturing (AM) enables novel process equipment devices. However, the manual 3D design of complex part geometries is frequently challenging as designers need to fulfill functional requirements and consider the restrictions of AM. One promising approach is to automatically generate the design of parts. This work aims to introduce such an automated design approach to practitioners in the area of process engineering. The work describes the basic steps required to develop an automated, knowledge-based design tool for AM and demonstrates the approach using a case study on flow manifolds.