In this exclusive interview, we delve into the journey of Olaf Diegel, a leading figure in the field of Additive Manufacturing (AM). From pioneering the use of AM in rapid prototyping to becoming a Professor of Additive Manufacturing at the University of Auckland, Olaf shares insights into his evolution in the industry. He elaborates on the development of his interest and expertise in Design for Additive Manufacturing (DfAM), shedding light on the crucial intersection of theory and hands-on experience.
Join us as we explore the recent applications of DfAM, the challenges faced by designers and engineers, and Olaf’s unique approach to educating the next generation of AM professionals.
This interview offers a sneak preview of his upcoming keynote lecture at the AMUG Conference, promising a deep dive into the value addition in AM processes and the potential game-changing role of automated design software.
1) Can you in brief share your journey and experience in the field of Additive Manufacturing, and how did your interest and expertise in DfAM develop ?
I started with additive manufacturing back in the early mid-nineties, when it was still called rapid prototyping. I was developing all kinds of products for companies and needing to prototype before we committed to expensive tooling for production. At the time, we had no machines in New Zealand at all, so I would email my files over to Australia and receive my printed prototypes a week or two later, teste it, make modifications to the design as required, etc. I was s impressed by the usefulness of it all that I bought one of the first FDM machine in New Zealand, and it has just continued to grow since then.
As the technologies continued to improve I started to get more interested in various AM research topics and, in particular, if you were using it beyond just prototyping, how to design for it the right way so as to minimize costs, post-processing, and add as much value to the product as possible. I moved form industry to academia, first with a PhD in product development to try and understand the best process and tools for rapidly developing products that ‘delight’ the customer. And, of course, CAD and additive manufacturing were two of the very powerful tools within the arsenal, so I then focused my research interest in those areas.
2) Could you provide a brief overview of recent applications achieved incorporating DfAM, and why it is crucial in the context of adoption of additive manufacturing processes?
AM is probably the single most expensive way of manufacturing anything in the know universe. Because of that, one can only use it for production if it adds enough value to overcome those high costs. The costs are formed my the machine costs, the material costs, the print times, the pre and post-processing times, etc. so anything in the design that can be used to reduce those while, at the same time, hopefully making the product better are winners.
So a lot of the applications we have been working on have been related to both reducing costs, typically by minimizing the amount of material used, so lowering the print times and costs, and on improving efficiency. So many of the applications have been in light-weighting products, such as race-car suspension parts, and creating more efficient products such as high-efficiency gyroid based heat exchangers. And, of course, I am currently building 3D printed guitars 113, 114 and 115, so that’s approaching small production quantities (for guitars).
3) As a Professor of Additive Manufacturing at the University of Auckland, how do you integrate DfAM concepts into your teaching, and what do you find most rewarding about educating the next generation of additive manufacturing professionals?
We currently have a full 4th yar course dedicated to design for AM, and this is very much a hands-on course, in which the students have to design material extrusion or resin polymer parts, powder bed fusion polymer parts and metal parts, print them, and do all the post processing themselves. Some of the students may have some experience with low-cost material extrusion or resin printers, but this is often their first time dealing with industrial production machines. And, when they suddenly have to experience the foy of removing metal support material, it suddenly opens their eyes to why it is so important it design to minimize this. It’s when I can see this almost instant true understanding of the theory that we teach them that I get a lot of satisfaction.
We also do a lot of hands-on AM related specialized software and computation design software as part of the course so that they know what they are doing once they get out to industry.
4) What are some common challenges that designers and engineers face when implementing DfAM, and how can these challenges be overcome?
What I often see as the single biggest challenge for designer and engineers wanting to design for AM is that they have often never actually experienced the hands-on operation of the system they are designing for. They may have been taught some theory about printing for metal, for example, but that is way different to really understand everything that is involved in preparing the machine, generating the print job (and it often when these fails that a lot of learning occurs), and then removing the build plate from the machine and doing all the post processing (heat treating, support removal, surface finishing, etc.). I see countless post-graduate students investigating some aspect of an AM technology but they have never actually used one of the machines or designed parts for them, and this leads them to investigate their hypothesis through parts that may not have been designed for that particular process or machine.
5) For designers and engineers looking to enhance their skills in DfAM, what advice or recommendations would you provide to help them navigate and excel in this evolving field?
Get your hands dirty! Don’t be afraid to run the machines yourself, or at least be involved in the process. At the very least, make sure you spend time talking to the machine operators as they often have years of deep-grained practical experience on what will, or will not, work well and a huge amount of knowledge can be learned from them.
Other than that, it is important to gain an understanding of what affects the cost, and the print quality, material properties of your part. Without these, it is hard to effectively design parts that are really optimized for whatever AM process is being used. And it is important to remember that, just because a part has been designed for one particular process, does not mean it will run the same one on another process.
6) Can you give us a sneak preview of your keynote lecture you will deliver at AMUG ? What are you looking forward to at the AMUG Conference ?
Because adding value is of such vital importance to make AM become worthwhile for production, this is what I will be focusing on in my AMUG talk, with countless real-world examples of parts that were designed in such a way that AM became a viable process for their production.
I will also be talking a bit about how some of the automated design software we have seen appearing in the market over the last few years that can really become a game changer for automatically designing series of products that have common traits.
Olaf Diegel, Professor of Additive Manufacturing, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Affiliations: University of Auckland, Creative Design and Additive manufacturing Lab, Center for Advanced Materials, Manufacturing and Design; Wohlers Associates, powered by ASTM.
Email: olaf.diegel@auckland.ac.nz
Olaf is an educator and a practitioner of additive manufacturing (AM) and product development with an excellent track record of developing innovative solutions to engineering problems. As professor of additive manufacturing, at the University of Auckland, in New Zealand, he is involved in all aspects of AM and is one of the principal authors of the annual Wohlers Report, considered by many to be the bible of AM. His current main area of research expertise is in design for AM.
In his consulting practice he develops a wide range of products for companies around the world. Over the past three decades he has developed over 100 commercialized new products and, for this work, has received numerous product development awards.
Over the last 25 years, Olaf has become a passionate follower of AM. He believes it is a technology that has been fantastic for innovation as it allows designers and inventors to instantly test out ideas to see if they work. It removes the traditional manufacturing constraints that become a barrier to creativity and allows us to get real products to market without the normally high costs that can become a barrier to innovation. In 2012, Olaf started manufacturing a range of 3D printed guitars (www.oddguitars.com) that has developed into a successful little side-business and provides excellent stress-relief.
