SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPTIMIZING TOOL PATHS BASED ON THERMAL/STRUCTURAL SIMULATIONS OF A PART BEING PRODUCED VIA A 3D-PRINTER

摘要

A system and method is provided that facilitates optimizing tool paths based on thermal/structural simulations of a part produced via a 3D-printer. A processor may carry out a first simulation of the part being additively produced according to a first set of tool paths that correspond to instructions usable to drive the 3D-printer to produce the part. The first simulation may include: determining a hexahedral mesh of the part that includes a plurality of hexahedron elements; determining an order of the elements of the mesh to deposit for additively producing the part based on the first set of tool paths; and simulating an incremental deposit of each of the elements of the mesh in the order that the elements are determined to be deposited. For each incremental deposit of an additional respective element, thermal characteristics and structural deformation characteristics of the deposited elements are determined, in which some elements have a change in volume to account for a structural deformation of previously deposited adjacent elements.