Advanced Design for Additive Manufacturing: 3D Slicing and 2D Path Planning

Abstract

Commercial 3D printers have been increasingly implemented in a variety of fieldsdue to their quick production, simplicity of use, and cheap manufacturing. Soft‐ware installed in these machines allows automatic production of components fromcomputer-aided design (CAD) models with minimal human intervention. However,there are fewer options provided, with a limited range of materials, limited pathpatterns, and layer thicknesses. For fabricating metal functional parts, such as laser-based, electron beam-based, and arc-welding-based additive manufacturing (AM)machines, usually more careful process design requires in order to obtain compo‐nents with the desired mechanical and material properties. Therefore, advanceddesign for additive manufacturing, particularly slicing and path planning, isnecessary for AM experts. This chapter introduces recent achievements in slicing andpath planning for AM process.