Analysis, Design, And Manufacturing using Microstructures

Objective:

ADAM^2 aims at questioning five decades of traditional paradigms in computer aided design CAD. While the field of CAD has been very successful in the last half a century using boundary representations, the introduction of microstructure into the design-analysis-manufacturing cycle is going to completely revolutionize geometric CAD from the ground up and into the essential volumetric representations, making an unprecedented leap in the quality of manufactured artefact. The evolution of new manufacturing technologies such as multi-material 3D printers gives rise to new type of objects that may consist of considerably less, yet heterogeneous, material, consequently being porous, lighter and cheaper, while having the very same functionality (e.g. stiffness) as the original object when manufactured from one single solid material. We propose a unified manufacturing pipeline that will focus on all stages involving Analysis, Design, And Manufacturing using Microstructures (ADAM^2). ADAM^2 proposes high-risky interdisciplinary research that will combine user-guided shape modelling using microstructures, followed by validation and structural optimization using physical process simulation, and finalized by physical realizations via additive and hybrid manufacturing and its subsequent validation. The results of this project will lead to scientific-technological development that impacts €2B/year CAD and €24B/year tool manufacturing European markets, and are expected to reduce the exploitation of heavy materials between an order of magnitude to two orders, in volume.