A Taxonomy of Design Features for Additive Manufacture

Abstract

The use of Additive Manufacture (AM) in New Product Development (NPD) supports creativity, reduces tooling costs and enhances the development process. Despite these advantages, there is still lack of available information to empower designers to take full advantage of AM. It is proposed that a taxonomy of AM-enabled design features will serve as a rich source of information for students and practitioners. These features refer to aspects of a product’s form or other attributes that would be uneconomical or expensive to be produced with conventional methods and thus better suited to be made by AM. Despite the fact that similar knowledge-based tools are available, they are largely segregated. In light of this, the paper aims to define and categorise the arrangement and classification of key reasons for using AM based on four measures encompassing orthogonality, spanning, completeness and usability. Following several iterations, four taxons were derived, consisting of user requirement, functionality, parts consolidation and aesthetics. The next stage of this research aims to incorporate the taxonomy as a design support tool for AM.