Support Structure Development and Initial Results for Metal Powder Bed Fusion Additive Manufacturing

The process of metal additive manufacturing is a relatively new method of fabricating complex parts in industry. Due to the infancy of the technology, limited documentation is available on how to rapidly and efficiently design and fabricate a given part. This paper covers one of the main practical issues of this technology, support generation and design when working with powder bed fusion metal additive manufacturing. This process requires support structures to hold and secure a part being built onto a base plate. The following paper will provide an introduction to the main options of support structure, grid and full support, as well as cover key understanding and developments with support structures for metal additive manufacturing. These support options and their variability will be discussed along with a methodology of rapidly obtaining baseline parameters for their use in fabrication.