Additive Manufacturing (AM) or commonly known as 3D printing possess the capacity to produce complex geometrical parts which are otherwise difficult to be produced by conventional manufacturing processes. However, AM built parts were expected to have distortions after first built due to residual stresses caused by heat transfer in the part. ‘Trial and Error’ approaches were adopted by manufacturers to refine the geometry and the corresponding built parameters in order to minimize distortions in the final product. Presently, this problem has been solved by simulation-based AM softwares which can, thereby, achieve a fairly high level of dimensional accuracy. The distortions of the simulated part are compensated by software by optimizing the geometry with minimum distortions. Simufact Additive is such a metal-based AM software which simulates the complete built process before practically 3D printing a part. Experimental evidence suggest that the simulated results produced by Simufact Additive are 99% accurate.

This study focuses on elaborating the complete optimization process based on a complex automotive part in Simufact Additive to ensure minimum distortions. The aim is to manufacture a geometry in the first built without distortions and minimum material and time wastage. After obtaining results from the optimization process, the optimized part will have a slightly different geometry and built parameters as compared to the initial part. To give a realistic comparison to manufacturers, the same automotive part is simulated on four different AM machines and the distortion compensations (optimization results) produced by each machine are compared. Four commonly used AM machines namely 3DSystems ProX320, EOS M400, ConceptLaser MlabCusing and Trumpf TruPrint 3000 are used to simulate the results of metal Powder-Bed-Fusion process and the optimization capability of each machine is highlighted. In the end, an important consideration of ‘Built Orientation’ is also discussed which normally have a profound impact in 3D printing of parts.