Optimum Support Structure Generation for Additive Manufacturing Using Unit Cell Structures and Support Removal Constraint

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the process in which a part is built using a layer by layer approach. Due to the inherent nature of the process, support structures are required to support overhanging features while building a part by AM. Support Structures increase the build time and cost of manufacturing and also have an adverse effect on the surface finish of the part. This paper presents a new approach for minimizing support structures using space filling cellular structures in conjunction with Dijkstra's shortest path algorithm to generate optimized support structures. Further, additional support accessibility constraints are applied to the support generation algorithm to ensure the ease of removal of the supports after manufacturing the part. The algorithm is validated by simulating the supports for two test parts while performing FEA analysis to test whether the generated structures are capable of supporting the weight of the part. A third test case is presented to verify the results of the algorithm using the support accessibility constraint.