Pic of the Week: Faster Lightweighting Through AI

In the past part designers have struggled with tools that aren’t up to the task of developing the complex designs that additive manufacturing can achieve. But with the rise of generative design, the pendulum may have swung too far in the opposite direction: With so many possibilities at the engineer’s fingertips, how does he or she zero-in on exactly the right one?

Today’s Pic offers one potential solution. AI-enabled software company Vixiv has spent the last several years 3D printing lattices, crushing them and feeding the data into an AI model, all to build a tool that can better enable the use of these lightweighting structures in 3D printed parts. 

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Source: Vixiv

The racing yacht winch arm pictured here illustrates the potential impact. The original handle (top) was an assembly containing 500 grams of cast aluminum. Running the design through the Vixiv tool revealed an option that maintained the strength of the part while dramatically reducing its weight and improving manufacturing by eliminating assembly.  

• Weight reduction: 68% (500 g down to 160 g)
• Shipping cost reduction due to lighter weight: 25% 
• Manufacturing speed via 3D printing: 50% faster due to reduction in mass (between the optimized and non-optimized arm)

Crucially, Vixiv’s software does not ask the designer to set parameters at a granular level, nor does it present the entire field of possibilities. Instead, the cloud-based AI engine fits different lattice designs into the volume based on shape, material and application requirements set by the user (strength or stiffness, for example).

In just minutes, the software provides 5 to 20 iterations to choose from, all of which can solve the given problem. (But if the software doesn’t have a lattice that works, it won’t hallucinate — this is one AI that isn’t afraid to admit when it doesn’t know the answer.) 

“It’s basically saying, I can get to your strength requirements in six different ways,” says Aaron Chow, CEO. “Which do you prefer?” 

From there, it is up to the user to select the final design using their own domain knowledge, cost sensitivities and other preferences. While lightweighting is a primary objective for nearly all lattice applications, a user might opt for a slightly heavier part because it is cheaper or easier to manufacture for instance. 

With this solution, designers don’t need to understand the intricacies of lattice cell design, nor do they need to work through dozens of iterations. 

“It can cut 5 hours of design work to 10 minutes,” Chow says. “This is a way to support that leap to additive for everyone that doesn’t have a team of PhDs with extensive design experience.”

Vixiv entered public release on October 1, offering its AI model tuned for Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) in nylon 12. Data from early users will help to inform future iterations of the tool, including models for metallics and other 3D printing processes. 

Source: Vixiv

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