Integrated design and quality conformance of parts manufactured via fused deposition modeling

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3D Print Western is an additive manufacturing (AM) service provider based in Edmonton, AB. The core activities of the company are to provide AM design, development and manufacturing services for different client needs across the full spectrum of the engineering product life cycle. The Company provides production grade, functional mechanical artifacts, comprising jigs, fixtures, tools, prototypes and models to its clients. For this purpose, the company has a state of the art Stratasys Fortus series fused deposition modeling (FDM) production printer. However, despite the advanced printing and design capability, the company is unable to verify and validate the required mechanical and geometric behavior of the final printed parts as per the client's requirements. This is mainly due to unavailability of appropriate design and qualification tools for design for additive manufacturing (DFAM). This results in a gap in confidence, process capability and quality assurance of the final product. This may result in product quality issues and higher risk in terms of equipment failure, loss of clients and revenue, and warranty issues. The company intends to reduce this risk and increase the quality through the proposed research project. The project will research and develop predictive computer aided design (CAD) methods for ensuring robust behavior and quality conformance of the additively manufactured goods.