Hexagon/Volume Graphics’ latest metal 3D printing software release offers enhanced geometrical compensation

Nominal-actual comparison of an additively manufactured bracket showing deviations >1mm in the upper sections

With metal additive manufacturing technologies, particularly LPBF (laser powder bed fusion) and EBPBF (electron beam powder bed fusion), part distortion can occur as a result of wide temperature variations during the printing process and long build times. Compensating for these variations is tedious because many factors influence metal AM operations.

The geometry-correction module written for VGSTUDIO MAX (and VGMETROLOGY) software compensates for the variations and dramatically reduces the number of design iterations required, claims the manufacturer, Volume Graphics GmbH. The Germany-based company, which has offices in the U.S., Japan, Singapore, and China, says its latest release compensates for the effects of part sintering and other variables that weren’t compensated for in earlier versions.

The latest version, V.3.5.2, has the ability to add two different compensations with different scales in a single workflow. This is valuable for sintering processes, reports Volume Graphics, because the user can compensate for the warpage and the shrinkage from sintering in one workflow.