Support Reduction

How to use…

The Support Reduction can be activated for every optimisation scenario separately under the Design Rules entry. Three different Support Reduction Modes (Passive, Reactive & Active) can be chosen. Moreover, for Reactive and Active an Intensity value can be set up.

Build direction

The build direction is the global z-direction by default. If another direction should be used, the part has to be rotated accordingly. The only exception to this are symmetrical optimisations, for them the build direction is the positive z-direction of the symmetry coordinate system.

Attention: The Material Coordinate System does not have an impact on the build direction for the Support Reduction! The build direciton entry in the scenario refers only to the Material Coordinate System and has no impact on the Support Reduction!

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General Explanation

For different applications there are different priorities and for some the manufacturability is specially high. Therefore, it would be nice to push designs in a direction where the manufacturing gets easier without costing to much performance regarding the efficient design and material allocation.

For this use case a Support Reduction function is implemented which takes the needed support for additive manufacturing into account while optimising the part. The function got three different strategies which could be used. The three different strategies are:

• Passive

• Reactive

• Active

The influence of the Support Reduction on the design increases from passive to reactive to active.

For reactive and active a second value can be defined, the intensity. The intensity can be chosen between 1 and 10, where 1 is very low and 10 is very high. Take in mind that a very high intensity could lead to a slower performance and unusual results. It is recommended to start with the first strategy and use the other two together with the intensity if the results are not satisfying.

Tip: Use the Shape Quality “Fine Tune” to get better results and get rid of artifacts that can occur during the support reduction

In the next images an example part is used to display the difference between results of the strategies.

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View from underneath wit the corresponding support structures in Simufact Additive:

In the following graph the influence of the strategies is illustrated. It can be saved up to 78% of support volume with activated Support Reduction. As a trade off the mass of the part increases. Because more material is used the part gets a little bit stiffer.

Note that this is only one example that illustrates how the support reduction could look like, but this differs between different parts and tasks. Feel motivated to try the different strategies to find the ideal one for your specific part.

You might also be interested in this tutorial:

• Support Reduction - Gripper