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4 Using Materials Data for Faster, Cheaper, More Repeatable Additive Manufacturing // Figure 5: Visualizing AM material properties using the Granta MI MatAnalyzer app. What is the business benefit? By analyzing the AM data in the Granta MI MatAnalyzer app, the customer better understands the process-property relationship. This enables manufacturers to adjust their process parameters by optimizing their AM machines or by better designing parts to achieve improved repeatability. By applying this approach, a theoretical double-digit repeatability improvement of the AM build can be achieved. This typically results in both time and cost savings. / 3) Integration with CAD, CAE and PLM systems Compared to conventional manufacturing process, a key benefit of AM is that it empowers you with design freedom for product development. However, this comes with certain challenges. 1. Have you considered the right material properties for your part's design, taking in to account the orientation and location of a part in the AM build chamber? 2. Have you considered the impact of surface roughness or porosity in your part's design by using the right material properties from physical mechanical testing results? 3. Have you used the right processing parameters for the simulation based on the part's design? 4. Did you use your own test results in design and optimization of the parts? 5. How accessible is materials information to those across your organization who need it? 6. How controlled is this information – is it accurate, secure, and consistent? 7. How traceable are your processes – can you inspect the materials data behind design decisions? 8. How integrated is your materials information with key engineering systems, such as design, simulation, and PLM? Granta MI enables you to confidently answer these questions, supported by a single, robust information system that captures all your materials data, analysis, context and experience. This empowers you to share it whenever and wherever, integrated into the business processes that need it. How do you transfer and share material data in a repeatable, easily extendable way? Integration can take multiple forms, based on your own environment: • Embedded integration with CAD, CAE and PLM with software products like Ansys Workbench, Siemens NX, PTC Creo (see Figure 6 example) • Do-it-yourself scripting solution • File-based transfer, enables engineers to publish material data for compatible systems, in an error-free, fast and cost-effective manner. Granta MI offers high flexibility in reproducing the ASCII file formats needed for material data assignments in many Design and Simulation environments. Including Dassault (SOLIDWORKS, CATIA V5), NASTRAN, Permas and many others*. * Some of this might need additional configuration on the host software side.

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