ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING SYSTEM AND METHOD OF ADDITIVE MANUFACTURE UTILIZING LAYER-BY-LAYER THERMO-MECHANICAL ANALYSIS

摘要

A method of operating an additive manufacturing system utilizing a layer-by-layer thermo-mechanical analysis system includes the steps of pre-modeling a structure or workpiece into a plurality of slices stacked from a bottom slice to a top slice of the plurality of slices, assuming a second slice modeled immediately below a first slice is a rigid substrate, and run a response force analysis for the first slice. The analysis system may reiterate this process for each slice calculating a force distribution map for each slice, and adding the force distribution maps to a total response force map of the entire structure. The additive manufacturing system may then use the total response force map to optimize material properties for selected regions of each slice to a sacrificial support structure and/or the final product.