nTopology has entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to develop and commercialize additive manufacturing (AM) using integrated software toolkits.
The companies reportedly plan to integrate nTopology software with ORNL’s machine control capabilities on large-scale polymer additive manufacturing systems.
Phase one of the agreement includes the development of a toolkit in nTopology’s Platform software to improve design and print preparation for Oak Ridge’s Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) machine focusing on large-scale polymer 3D printing, while phase two includes the creation of a toolkit to engineer direct metal grain growth with an electron beam manufacturing (EBM) system and the development of an additional toolkit to design honeycomb infill based on circle packing and simulation for fused deposition modeling (FDM). nTopology will also develop simulation-based optimization of support structures for BAAM, direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) and EBM.
This story uses material from nTopology, with editorial changes made by Materials Today. The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of Elsevier.
