ABSTRACT
This chapter provides product designers with clear guidelines on design for additive manufacturing (DfAM), written with their workflow in mind. It includes reference guides and summary tables of key features and specifications for the most relevant additive manufacturing technologies to product designers, expanding on the introductory information of Chapter 1. This includes comparisons of build volumes, recommendations for minimum wall thickness, tolerances for 3D printed assemblies, designing for colour 3D printing processes, and other important technical guidelines.
In addition, the chapter includes practical information on pre-production preparation, including optimisation and file preparation. It also discusses designing for post-processing, which is an area often overlooked in instruction manuals and news articles promoting the latest 3D printing success stories, but which is critical for product designers and companies adopting the technology. This includes designing to minimise post-processing and a summary of the post-processing treatments that can be used to enhance the performance characteristics of parts after 3D printing. This includes paints and dyes, through to vapour smoothing, bead blasting, polishing, metal plating, and heat treatments. Photographs include both good and bad examples of DfAM, as well as parts before and after post-processing and cross-section views of 3D prints to show internal details.
