An interactive manufacturability analysis and tolerance allocation tool for additive manufacturing

Geometric tolerances for new products are sometimes assigned without specific knowledge of the cost or feasibility of manufacturing them to the assigned tolerances, which can significantly drive up production costs and lead to delays and design revisions. We present an interactive tool that quickly estimates the manufacturability of assigned tolerances for additive manufacturing and a compact visualization to present this information to the designer. The designer can use the system to explore feasible build orientations and then adjust specified tolerance limits if all tolerances are not simultaneously achievable at a single orientation. After the designer is satisfied that the range of feasible orientations has been fully explored, a physical programming approach is used to identify a single orientation to best satisfy the designer’s preferences. The calculation and visualization of the results is done in real-time, enabling quick iteration. A test case is presented to illustrate the use of the tool.